GA Power: Bill Hikes and Property Owner Woes
Georgia Power's Data Center Delusion: Guess Who's Footing the Bill?
Let's be real, folks. You open your Georgia Power bill every month with a knot in your stomach, right? Wondering if this is the month they finally break you. Well, hold onto your wallets, because our beloved utility company is cooking up a scheme that could make those knots feel like a full-blown aneurysm. We’re talking about a proposed power fleet expansion so massive, so speculative, that even the Georgia Public Service Commission's own staff are sounding the alarm bells. And guess who they say will get stuck with the tab? You, the residential customer. Always you.
PSC staff analysts, bless their bureaucratic hearts, just dropped a bombshell testimony. They're warning that if the PSC greenlights Georgia Power's grand plan to add a staggering 10,000 megawatts to its generation fleet – in the next five years, no less – your monthly bill could jump by twenty bucks, maybe more. Twenty bucks! That’s not chump change when everything else is already through the roof. For context, one of those shiny new Plant Vogtle nuclear reactors, the ones that cost us billions and years of headaches, pumps out about 1,100 megawatts. So, Georgia Power wants to build nearly ten Vogtle-sized equivalents. This ain't just an expansion; it's a full-on land grab, power plant edition.
A Shell Game with Your Hard-Earned Cash
Now, why all this sudden need for juice? Data centers. Those hulking warehouses packed with servers powering our AI dreams and TikTok addictions. Georgia Power and the data center industry are screaming about unprecedented demand, but here’s where it gets good. The PSC staff looked at the numbers, and they’re saying only about a third of what Georgia Power wants to build is actually backed by signed contracts. The rest? "Speculative," they call it. And if that anticipated load doesn't materialize, we, the loyal customers, get to pay for the stranded costs. It's like buying a brand new car for a kid who hasn't even learned to drive, only to find out they decided to take the bus instead, and you’re still stuck with the car payments.
And here’s the kicker: this isn't some hypothetical "what if." The PSC staff pointed out that data center projects are already underperforming expectations, with cancellations and delays happening right here in Georgia. In fact, a recent filing from Georgia Power itself admitted their pipeline of large load projects shrank by a net 6 GW from Q2 to Q3 2025. They try to spin it, saying "commitments" have grown, but the raw numbers show 14.3 GW of projects exited the pipeline. They expect us to believe this nonsense, and honestly... it’s a classic bait-and-switch. They want to build, build, build on our dime, knowing full well these shiny new tech palaces might just vanish into thin air. I mean, are we really supposed to believe their forecast model accounts for this level of churn? Give me a break.
Meanwhile, Georgia Power is out there teaming up with the Atlanta Falcons for some "Light Up the Holidays" contest on Instagram, inviting folks to share festive décor or acts of community service. It's all very heartwarming, isn't it? While they're getting people to post pictures of twinkle lights, they're quietly trying to hike up your actual electricity bill so they can light up their profit margins. That’s a real kick in the teeth, if you ask me.
The political backdrop to all this is just chef's kiss. This staff warning comes right after two Republican incumbent PSC commissioners lost their seats in an election where rising utility bills were the central issue. The irony? Those same two commissioners, Fitz Johnson and Tim Echols, get to cast their votes on this critical case just days before they're out the door on December 19th. Talk about a parting shot. The PSC won't delay the vote, offcourse. Why would they? The incoming Democrats, who might actually side with the consumers, won't even get a say. It’s almost as if the system is rigged, isn't it? Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one here for thinking our elected officials should represent us.
Georgia Power says they have "options" if demand falters, like delaying construction or finding new contracts. But the PSC staff ain't buying it. They say the "guardrails" Georgia Power put in place earlier this year to protect residential customers from data center costs aren't enough, especially since most existing contracts were signed before those new rules took effect. "No guarantee those costs will not be passed on to existing customers," is what Trokey and his consultants wrote. And here's the kicker: Georgia Power stands to profit "tremendously" from this expansion, potentially nearly doubling their "rate base"—the magic number that determines their earnings. So, they win, either way. We pay.