Agreement Increases Customers’ Bills for Decades to Come
Today, Georgia Power reached an agreement with the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) staff, which for weeks has been urging the PSC Commissioners to deny most of a major new power request from Georgia Power. Today’s agreement would greenlight Georgia Power’s request to spend $20 billion in new power generation to meet the utility’s projections for massive energy demands, namely to power new data centers, for many years to come. The agreement came moments before the PSC began a hearing meant to consider public arguments about whether Commissioners should approve or deny the request.
Dr. Stephen A. Smith, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Executive Director, said, “Georgia Power has misled the families and businesses across Georgia by suggesting that the settlement today will lower their overall electric power rate. It’s outrageous that Georgia Power has conspired with Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) staff to institute a multi-decade, massive rate increase for all Georgia Power customers and then say that they are helping lower energy costs.
“What they’re not revealing is the new power plants that Georgia Power is requesting will effectively cause a minimum $20 monthly base rate increase on its customers’ bills, based on the PSC staff’s own analysis. To add insult to injury, a further bill increase will add pass-through fuel costs on customers’ bills for decades to come. All that happened today was a temporary agreement that the base rate increase might be reduced from $20 to $12 a month for three years before reverting back to the higher base rate as time goes on.
“It is a misrepresentation when Georgia Power says that larger users like data centers are paying more when, in actuality, these larger users are causing the new investments that will increase rates for families and businesses. It also remains speculative whether that large-load demand will even materialize or stick around.”
