"Critics fear Georgia Power’s $16.3 billion investment in fossil-gas plants and batteries will jack up customers’ bills if data centers don’t show up as forecasted."
"The Georgia Public Service Commission on Friday approved a controversial plan that will allow the state’s biggest utility to commence one of the largest new fossil-fuel buildouts in the country — a move that critics fear will raise utility bills for most Georgia residents over the coming years.
The last-minute settlement was approved unanimously by the five commissioners, all Republicans. The vote came just weeks before two of those commissioners are set to be replaced by Democrats who won upset victories in the November election by running on the issue of energy affordability.
Back in November, staff at the PSC recommended that the commission allow Georgia Power to build only about one-third of the nearly 10 gigawatts of new gas-fired power plants and batteries the utility had requested. Friday’s decision instead gives it the go-ahead to move forward on building the full total.
The utility has justified that scale by pointing to forecasts of booming electricity demand due to new data-center construction. In recent weeks, however, even Georgia Power has reduced its data-center demand projections. And across the state and the country, concerns are rising that the boom in artificial intelligence that is driving data-center investments may be a bubble about to burst."
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