ATLANTA – Today, environmental groups demanded that the Georgia Public Service Commission reconsider Georgia Power’s plan to build the most expensive gas plants in the nation.
The Sierra Club, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) filed a motion to reconsider Georgia Power’s “Requests for Proposals,” or RFP, which the PSC approved on Dec. 19. Georgia Power’s plan could lock Georgia ratepayers into higher utility bills for decades while expanding methane gas plants that will pollute Georgia communities until 2075. The PSC’s own staff estimates customer bills could go up about $20 per month, and customers would pay $50-60 billion over the next 50 years.
Despite clear evidence that Georgia Power does not need to procure 10 gigawatts of resources by 2031 —including the unnecessary, overly expensive 757-megawatt Plant McIntosh gas plant— the Commission approved the company’s plan anyway. The Sierra Club, SELC, and SACE’s motion asks the Commission to reconsider its decision in light of the record.
Michael Hawthorne, Campaign Organizing Strategist for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, said, “The PSC approving Georgia Power’s RFP will line the pockets of corporate executives and shareholders while hardworking Georgians will be left to foot the bill for the most costly fossil fuel expansion in the country. All in the name of speculative data centers that hog power and water in our local communities. This lame duck PSC has delivered another blow to Georgians and the PSC must reconsider the RFP.”
Adrien Webber, Sierra Club Georgia Chapter Director, said, “This approval by the PSC gives Georgia Power the largest and most expensive grid expansion in the country. This is state-sanctioned corporate welfare approved by two lame duck commissioners with one foot out the door, and it’s exactly the business-as-usual approach that voters overwhelmingly rejected at the ballot box in November. The RFP should be reconsidered now that Commissioners Johnson and Hubbard have been seated.”
Dr. Stephen A. Smith, Executive Director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said, “The PSC’s late December approval of high-cost and high-risk investments in support of speculative data center gambits demands reconsideration. This is too much bill payer money, directed at too many risky projects, with too little oversight, and too few protections.”
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MEDIA CONTACTS: Andy Li, andy.li@sierraclub.org; Amy Rawe, amyr@cleanenergy.org, 865-235-1448.
