PSC Approves Georgia Power’s Dangerously Short-Sighted IRP

Press Contacts: Andy Li, Sierra Club, andy.li@sierraclub.org | Leslie Edwards, NRDC, ledwards@nrdc.org | Amy Rawe, SACE, 865-235-1448, amyr@cleanenergy.org

ATLANTA – Today, the Georgia Public Service Commission voted to approve Georgia Power’s Integrated Resource Plan, locking Georgia into a future of toxic coal and gas plants and overburdened ratepayers.

The IRP was approved unanimously. The IRP calls for Plant Bowen, near Cartersville, and Plant Scherer, just outside Macon, to operate well into the 2030s– past their planned retirement dates. The approved plan also caters almost exclusively to Big Tech consumers and data centers, while placing the hardest burdens on everyday Georgia residents.

By Georgia Power’s own admission, its predictions for data centers are entirely speculative and have “significant potential for overestimation of both energy and peak load.” The PSC has allowed Georgia Power to continue operating coal plants that are wildly expensive to maintain and are not in the best interest of customers. Part of this cost is building new methane gas plants – including at the Bowen and Wansley sites. This will create a dangerously volatile and wildly expensive system of pipelines that simply adds one fossil fuel on top of another.

In response, the Sierra Club, the NRDC, and SACE released the following statements:

“Georgia Power is pretending it is scrambling to meet the needs of a tsunami of data centers, and it is using that false sense of urgency to create the worst possible plan for Georgia residents,” said Lexy Doherty, Campaign Organizing Strategist with the Sierra Club. “Keeping coal plants operating and polluting will destroy the health of communities and add more burden on people’s energy bills to keep these plants up to date. Georgia Power has the time and the resources to create an IRP that prioritises clean energy and makes Georgia’s energy bills more affordable, but the PSC is letting them run wild and at the end of the day, we will be the ones who pay the price.”

“According to Georgia Power, Hurricane Helene was the most destructive storm in the company’s history, but it won’t hold that distinction for long,” said Adrien Webber, Sierra Club Georgia Chapter Director. “Climate change is leading to more powerful and more frequent storms, and this IRP will make Georgia Power one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the U.S. As a direct result of this decision, hurricanes will become more destructive, flash floods will happen more often and with less time to prepare, and debilitating heatwaves will become commonplace. Shame on the PSC and Georgia Power for selling out Georgia’s future in the name of higher profits.”

“The Commission’s approval locks in major investments based on uncertain assumptions about future data center demand, while failing to deliver meaningful benefits or cost relief to existing residential and small business customers,” said Patrick King, Georgia Policy Advocate with NRDC. “At a time when energy affordability is a growing concern for many Georgians, the plan prioritizes speculative growth over the needs of the customers Georgia Power already serves.”

“The strides made in solar, storage, and customer programs for clean energy are sadly blunted by the continued investment in fossil fuel infrastructure in the approved IRP,” said Heather Pohnan, Senior Energy Policy Manager with SACE. “On top of that, the fact that Georgia Power is authorized to seek certification for up to 8,500 MW of resource capacity after the IRP means there’s potential for even more spending on brand-new gas plants on the horizon.”

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