As data centers continue to expand across Georgia, Georgia Power is pushing back against what company officials describe as misinformation surrounding the massive facilities and their impact on residential electric customers.

The issue has become increasingly important as Georgia emerges as one of the country’s major data center markets. The facilities require enormous amounts of electricity, prompting questions about whether residential customers will ultimately pay for the new generation and transmission infrastructure needed to serve them.

Georgia Power says they will not.

The utility says new rules approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission require large energy users, including data centers, to pay the costs associated with serving them.

Under those rules, new customers requiring 100 megawatts or more can be required to enter long-term contracts, pay minimum monthly bills even when they don’t use the electricity, provide financial collateral and make substantial termination payments if they leave before their contracts expire.

Georgia Power also says large customers must pay upfront for local infrastructure required specifically to serve their facilities.

Company officials argue those requirements prevent residential and small-business customers from subsidizing data center development.

Georgia Power has also pushed back against claims that data center growth will cause residential base rates to increase in the immediate future. The company’s base rates are currently frozen through at least 2028.

Georgia Power says revenue from large energy users is actually expected to benefit residential customers. Beginning in 2029, the company projects that additional revenue from large-load customers will provide benefits equivalent to approximately $102 per year for a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month.

The Georgia Public Service Commission has taken a similar position, saying its rules are specifically designed to ensure revenue from data centers reduces — rather than increases — the burden on residential customers.

The growth involved is substantial.

In 2022, Georgia Power estimated that it would need only about 400 megawatts of additional generation during the following seven years. By 2023, as data center development accelerated, that projection had increased to approximately 6,600 megawatts. The forecast subsequently climbed even higher.

In December 2025, state regulators approved a plan allowing Georgia Power to add 9,885 megawatts of new generation, with most of that additional electricity expected to serve large customers such as data centers.

Georgia Power also disputes suggestions that data centers will make electric service less reliable. The company says large facilities generally require dedicated infrastructure and that system improvements constructed to accommodate major new customers can also improve reliability and resiliency in surrounding areas.

Questions About Costs Remain

Despite those assurances, the debate is not settled.

The Public Service Commission voted this summer to investigate whether certain fuel-related expenses associated with data centers and other large customers could still be passed along to residential and small-business customers.

One issue involves costs such as guaranteed natural-gas pipeline capacity needed to supply Georgia Power generating plants. Critics contend some of those expenses may not currently be fully recovered from large customers using certain electricity-rate structures.

PSC public-interest staff has also previously questioned Georgia Power’s projections for future data center electricity demand, raising concerns about the possibility of building generation capacity for projects that ultimately aren’t constructed.

Those concerns are particularly important because Georgia Power is making multibillion-dollar investments in new generation and transmission infrastructure to prepare for expected growth.

The debate has intensified further with several enormous data center developments planned around Georgia, including OpenAI’s proposed $20 billion data center campus in Effingham County near Savannah. The facility is expected to require as much as 3,200 megawatts of electricity, potentially making it the largest individual electricity user in Georgia.

The contract between Georgia Power and the OpenAI project is currently receiving scrutiny from the Public Service Commission as regulators examine whether existing customers are adequately protected from costs associated with serving the massive facility.

Georgia Power maintains that Georgia’s regulatory structure is different from states where rapidly expanding data centers have been blamed for increasing electricity costs.

The company’s message to customers is straightforward: data centers are required to pay their own way, residential customers will not subsidize them, and the additional revenue generated by those large customers should eventually put downward pressure on residential rates.

But with billions of dollars in new power-generation and transmission projects planned, state regulators continue examining whether those protections are working as intended.