Public Service Commission Passes Georgia Power's Costs to Ratepayers

ATLANTA — Today, despite the efforts of two commissioners, the Georgia Public Service Commission agreed to allow Georgia Power to continue automatically passing along all of its fuel costs to ratepayers rather than creating an incentive for the utility company to better manage fuel costs.

The commission approved a proposed stipulation agreement in Georgia Power's 2026 Fuel Cost Recovery docket. Commissioner Peter Hubbard, however, made two motions to amend the agreement– to investigate several issues including transportation costs, hedging efficacy, and Georgia Power's uneconomic decision to run coal plants, which cost customers $152 million; and to hold back 10% of the uneconomic coal dispatch, or $15.2 million, unless Georgia Power could provide evidence to justify its coal use. Commissioner Alicia Johnson supported the new initiatives, but Commissioners Jason Shaw, Bubba McDonald, and Tricia Pridemore voted them down.

In response to the decision, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy released the following statements:

"This fuel cost agreement is entirely insufficient," said Michael Hawthorne, Campaign Organizing Strategist for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. "Commissioners Shaw, Pridemore and McDonald have allowed Georgia Power to shirk all responsibility to pay for its own decisions and its own mistakes. With no incentive to control costs or reduce the use of uneconomic coal plants, Georgia Power continues to get a free pass. The PSC must hold Georgia Power accountable, investigating decisions that cost ratepayers millions and finding new ways to share costs between electric bill payers and Georgia Power."

"While the roughly $4 reduction to the average monthly bill is better than Georgia Power's original proposal, today's decision still leaves major accountability issues unresolved," said Patrick King II, Policy Advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This decision largely preserves a system where nearly all fuel costs are passed directly onto customers. But this docket also exposes growing concerns that not all customers are carrying those costs equally. As Commission staff and intervenors highlighted, the company's RTP (Real Time Pricing) structure, which is used primarily by data centers, may allow some of the fuel costs tied to the explosive load growth that these facilities are responsible for, being shifted onto residential and small business customers instead."

"We applaud Commissioners Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson for trying to reduce the fuel cost portion of Georgia Power electric bills. We are disappointed that the rest of the Commission is protecting the status quo," said Eddy Moore, Decarbonization Director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.