Staff at the Georgia Public Service Commission on Wednesday approved a contract between Georgia Power and OpenAI that clears the utility to provide electricity for a 3.2 gigawatt hyperscale data center planned for Effingham County.
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The contract includes new protections for residential and business ratepayers, according to a letter filed with the PSC and signed by its staff and Georgia Power attorneys. Consumer advocates have warned against shifting to other ratepayers the costs of providing energy to the massive data centers, especially if an AI bubble emerges.
And the demand predicted from the proposed OpenAI data center at the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub is massive, equal to that of more than 2 million homes.
Georgia Conservation Voters praised the agreement while offering a caveat:
“This deal, negotiated by the Georgia Public Service Commission’s dedicated staff, might represent the cutting edge of data center regulation in this country,” the clean energy and consumer advocacy organization wrote in a prepared statement. “But only if we have a governing majority on the Commission willing to enforce its provisions and implications in the 2028 Rate Case and Integrated Resource Plan.”
Protections outlined in the letter include:
- Georgia Power agrees not to recover lost revenues from non-large load customers, including residents and the vast majority of the state’s business owners.
- Improved transparency with additional public reporting for contracts of this scale. The contract has not been made public, but Georgia Power agreed to provide a public summary within 10 days. Georgia Power also will file a semiannual public report that provides (1) an overview of the performance of the company’s portfolio of large load data center customers, and (2) an operational update of the large load data center customers.
- Georgia Power agreed to increase the downward pressure on rates from $8.50 per month to at least $15 per month to the typical residential customer using an average of 1,000 kWh per month for the years 2029, 2030, and 2031. This provision does not guarantee lower bills for customers, because increases from other factors, such as storm damage and fuel costs, can outstrip the promised cuts.
Director of Utilities Tom Bond explained the agreement’s intent at a PSC meeting Thursday.
“If a data center leaves, or a group of data centers leaves, do we have the tools to protect customers?” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to address with this.”
PSC Commissioner Alicia Johnson, whose district includes Effingham County, and who had advocated for greater scrutiny of the contract, supports the agreement.
“Economic growth must never come at the expense of the people and communities we serve,” she said in a prepared statement. “Based on the record before us, I believe this agreement provides meaningful protections against shifting the costs and risks associated with this project onto Georgia’s residential and small-business customers.”
Georgia Power spokesman Joshua Peacock said the filing reinforces a pledge the company made earlier this summer that residential and small business customers will not bear the financial risks associated with data center and other large-load customer growth.
“To further strengthen those protections, Georgia Power has agreed that if a large-load customer terminates a contract early, the Company will not seek to recover any resulting revenue deficiency from residential and small business customers in future rate proceedings,” he wrote in an email to The Current GA.
