Georgia Power asks to burn more risky, polluting fossil fuels

ATLANTA— This morning, Georgia Power asked the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) for an increase in fossil fuels to supply power-hungry facilities, like data centers, swarming to the state.

The company’s request walks back commitments to retire coal burning units and includes future plans to convert existing units to methane gas, deepening Georgia’s reliance on climate-warming fossil fuels for decades. Relying on more expensive and unpredictably priced fuels like coal and methane gas will expose residential and small business customers to bill hikes. Additionally, it subjects neighboring communities to adverse health effects related to increased air pollution. While Georgia Power included some forward-looking requests, including additional solar generation and a virtual power plant pilot, more innovative solutions are needed for all Georgians that prioritize reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

Georgia Power’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) is a request made to the PSC that outlines how the company wants to supply energy for customers. The process typically happens every three years and triggers a months-long review that includes courtroom-style hearings and input from consumer and environmental advocacy groups, as well as customers. Georgia Interfaith Power and Light (GIPL) and Southface Institute, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, intend to intervene in this year’s process.

Georgia Power’s request includes:

• Abandoning commitments to retire fossil fuel burning units at three plants: Plant Scherer (Juliette, GA), Plant Bowen (Euharlee, GA), and Plant Gaston (Wilsonville, AL). 
• Plans to invest in more climate-warming methane gas, (alongside existing coal plants), and spotlighting new methane gas plants as the right solution for Georgia. The cost of gas—which rises and falls with global markets, is passed on to customers.
• To increase the company’s “reserve margin,” an energy rainy day reserve. Georgia Power customers already pay to maintain one of the highest reserve margins in the country, generating much more spare energy than similar utilities in the South.
• Likely billions of dollars in transmission investments, much of which are required to accommodate Georgia’s data-center boom, are requested without prices publicly shared for the public’s consideration.
• A proposal for increase demand-side management programs, which, if approved, would help households use less energy, allowing Georgia to creep closer to its Southeastern peers in investing in wiser energy usage. 
• Piloting a virtual powerplant program. Virtual powerplants are innovative, forward-thinking systems that manage power resources.
• The ability to procure up to 1,000 MW of new Utility Scale renewable energy resources, a step in the right direction meeting Georgians’ need for reliable, clean, low-cost energy.
• Upgrades to aging nuclear and hydro powered units across the state.

“While innovative ideas, like piloting a virtual power plant and improving the efficiency of existing resources, offer a glimmer of hope, Georgia Power’s push for more investments in our dirtiest energy cast a heavy shadow over Georgia—one that looms over both our environment and people’s wallets,” said Codi Norred, executive director of GIPL. “Georgia Power has promised to prioritize residential customers’ bills before, and they have yet to do that in a meaningful way. There is no reason the health and financial burden should fall on hardworking families when cleaner, more affordable alternatives are within reach.”

“We applaud the commission’s commitment to hold the line on customers’ bills, even in the face of the massive investments Georgia Power is requesting to serve this large load,” said Thomas Farmer, Southface Institute’s vice president of advocacy. “Residential and small business customers cannot be on the hook for unhealthy, expensive energy just to help Georgia Power profit from the data center boom.”

“We’re the number one state to do business and one of the U.S.’s fastest growing tech hubs. Are we really going to power progress with gas and coal?” said Jennifer Whitfield, a senior attorney in SELC’s Georgia office. “Coal hasn’t been economic for years, and paying for even more methane gas is incompatible with the future Georgians want and businesses are demanding.”

Fossil fuels, like coal and methane gas, leave customers vulnerable to costly utility bill spikes. Georgia Power’s residential customers already pay some of the highest electricity bills in the country. In 2023 there was a $2 million spike in methane gas and coal costs that resulted in the average residential customer paying an extra $16 a month. In contrast, solar energy has no fuel cost.

Over the past two years the average residential Georgia Power bill has climbed more than $43 a month. The burden is even heavier for lower-income Georgians, who use about 36% more electricity than their counterparts in other states.

Despite this, Georgia Power and its shareholders have enjoyed growing profits. In the company’s third quarter 2024 earnings report, Georgia Power’s parent Southern Company netted an income of $1.5 billion from July through September, up from $1.4 billion (7%) during the same period last year.