ATLANTA — With affordability a top concern of voters, Georgia lawmakers are moving to insulate electricity ratepayers from costs driven by demand from power-guzzling data centers.
Late last year, the state Public Service Commission authorized a Georgia Power request to expand its power production by nearly 10 gigawatts, mostly to serve current and projected demand from data centers.
That expansion will require the construction of new methane-burning facilities, and House Bill 1063 seeks to ensure that those costs are borne only by data centers.
Data center electricity costs are a top concern, said Rep. Brad Thomas, R-Holly Springs, chief co-sponsor the bill.
Lawmakers have heard from people across the state that ratepayers are concerned their electrical bills will rise because of data centers, he said. The main concern, he said, is that Georgia Power’s demand projections will prove inaccurate, leading the company to build excess capacity and then pass on the costs.
“We have heard that concern and we are going to address it,” Thomas said Friday after a House committee unanimously passed HB 1063.
A similar measure — Senate Bill 34 — awaits a hearing in the Senate.
During the hearing Friday on Thomas’ bill, advocates for the public, for the environment and for data centers said they supported the measure but had concerns about some of the details.
Thomas took that to mean he had struck the right compromise between their competing interests.
A Georgia Power executive who testified said the company was neither for nor against the bill. Many of the protections the legislation would codify are already required by Public Service Commission regulations, an agency representative said, but regulations can change and passage of HB 1063 would write the requirements into law.