Georgia Regulators Add Ratepayer Safeguards To OpenAI Power Deal

✓What's documented Sourced to a letter Georgia Power and PSC staff filed with the commission chairman, plus on-record statements from PSC Commissioner Alicia Johnson.

Georgia Public Service Commission staff approved a contract clearing Georgia Power to supply electricity to a 3.2 gigawatt OpenAI data center in Effingham County, with new conditions meant to keep the project's costs off residential and small-business bills. Georgia Power agreed not to recover lost revenue from other customers if the data center leaves, and to boost the downward pressure on typical residential rates from $8.50 to at least $15 a month for 2029 through 2031. The utility earns a regulated return on the infrastructure it builds for large loads like this one, so how those costs and savings get allocated is the same math driving affordability fights nationwide.

• Contract covers a 3.2 GW hyperscale data center at the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub, demand equal to more than 2 million homes.
• Georgia Power will not seek to recover revenue shortfalls from residential or small-business customers if the data center terminates its contract early.
• Company must publish a summary of the contract within 10 days and file semiannual public reports on its large-load data center portfolio.
• The $15-a-month rate credit does not guarantee lower bills, since other cost drivers like storm damage and fuel can outweigh it.