Georgia families should not be asked to pay more on their power bills without clear answers, strong oversight, and real accountability.
Georgia Power and the Public Service Commission’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff have filed a proposed agreement on storm damage recovery and fuel costs. The agreement includes real progress for customers: it significantly reduces Georgia Power’s storm recovery request, rejects an expansion of natural gas hedging, and opens the door to more scrutiny of large-load energy users, including data centers.
But progress is not full accountability.
The proposal still leaves customers facing potential new charges. It does not fully protect families from fossil fuel price volatility. And it raises serious questions about why some large energy users may be paying zero dollars toward costs that families and small businesses are still asked to cover.
The Public Service Commission has not made a final decision. Commissioners are expected to vote on the proposal on May 28, 2026. Before that happens, Georgians deserve to understand what is at stake.
What the proposal would do
Georgia Power originally requested approximately $269.7 million in storm-related cost recovery. Under the proposed agreement, that amount would be reduced to approximately $109.1 million.
That reduction matters. Georgia Power did not get a blank check, and customers are better off than they would have been under the original request. But customers could still pay about $109 million in additional storm-related costs. Reducing a request is not the same thing as protecting families from higher bills. Storms are real. Repairing the grid after storms is necessary. But the question before the PSC is not whether the lights should come back on after severe weather. Of course they should.
The real questions are:
- Who pays?
- How much do customers pay?
- What oversight is in place?
- How do we know every dollar is justified?
- Are customers paying only for reasonable storm recovery costs — or also for utility profit later?
Georgia families deserve to know that every dollar charged to customers has been carefully reviewed, justified, and tied to real public benefit.
What the proposal gets right
The proposed agreement includes several important customer steps:
- It significantly reduces Georgia Power’s storm recovery request. The request would drop from approximately $269.7 million to approximately $109.1 million, showing why public scrutiny and consumer advocacy matter.
- It rejects Georgia Power’s request to expand natural gas hedging. Natural gas prices can be volatile, and customers are often the ones left paying when fossil fuel costs swing. Rejecting expanded hedging helps limit additional financial exposure tied to gas markets.
- It creates a new review of large-load fuel cost allocation. The proposal requires review of how certain large energy users, including real-time pricing customers, are handled in fuel cost calculations. That review must be completed by December 31, 2026.
- It adds some storm and fuel oversight measures. These include limits on certain above-market coal purchases and additional review of storm response practices.
These are meaningful steps. They should be preserved and strengthened in the final PSC decision.
What still needs scrutiny
Even with these improvements, the proposal leaves major affordability and accountability questions unresolved.
Customers could still see new charges on their bills. The proposal does not require Georgia Power shareholders to absorb a meaningful share of fuel cost volatility. And some storm-related costs may be shifted into utility assets and raised again in a future base rate case.
That last point matters.
The stipulation moves approximately $29 million in storm capital labor costs into “plant in service.” That may reduce the immediate storm rider, but it could allow Georgia Power to seek a long-term return on those costs later.
In plain language: some costs may not be gone. They may just be delayed.
Key questions remain:
- Are customers being protected from unnecessary or unreasonable costs?
- Will Georgia Power shareholders share any meaningful responsibility for fuel cost risk?
- Are storm response costs being reviewed with enough transparency?
- Will the final agreement include cost protections for low-income households, seniors, and families already struggling with high bills?
- Are data centers and other large energy users paying their fair share?
- Is Georgia reducing dependence on volatile fossil fuel costs, or continuing to pass that risk to customers?
These are not abstract policy questions. They show up in monthly bills.
For a family already choosing between groceries, rent, medicine, and utilities, even small increases can matter.
Data centers should not get a zero-dollar pass
Georgia is seeing rapid growth in electricity demand from large-load customers, including data centers. These facilities can use enormous amounts of electricity.
That raises a basic fairness question: Are massive energy users paying their own way, or are families and small businesses helping subsidize their costs?
An analysis conducted by the Southern Environmental Law Center raises a serious concern: some large-load customers may be paying zero dollars toward major system costs that other customers help cover, including costs tied to new methane pipelines, fuel programs, renewable contracts, and customer discounts.
That should set off alarm bells.
If data centers are driving new energy demand, they should not get a free pass while Georgia families are asked to pay more on their monthly bills.
The review required by this proposal is an important opening. But review alone is not enough. The PSC should use the December 31 deadline to make sure large-load customers are paying their fair share and that residential customers are protected from cost-shifting.
Georgia families should not be stuck with a hidden bill for Big Tech’s energy demand.
Georgia needs a stronger storm accountability standard
Storm response is essential. But storm recovery should come with public standards, clear reporting, and enforceable accountability.
If Waffle House can track storm readiness down to the local level, Georgia Power should be able to give customers clear, public, enforceable standards for storm response and recovery spending.
The proposed agreement includes storm response review requirements, but those reviews need teeth. Georgians deserve to know:
- What costs were incurred?
- Were they reasonable?
- What standards guided the response?
- What will change before the next storm?
- How will customers know they are not paying twice?
Storm recovery cannot become another automatic pass-through on customer bills.
Why this matters
PSC decisions affect nearly every Georgia Power customer.
They shape:
- Monthly bills
- How costs are shared
- Energy affordability
- Grid reliability
- Whether Georgia invests in a cleaner and more affordable energy future
These proceedings are often technical and hard to follow. That works to the advantage of powerful utilities and insiders. It does not work for everyday Georgians.
People deserve plain-language information about what is happening, why it matters, and how decisions made at the PSC affect their lives.
That is especially true when the proposal could lead to additional charges on customer bills.
Key dates
- May 13–14, 2026: Storm recovery hearings
- May 28, 2026: Expected PSC vote
- June 1, 2026: Potential effective date for fuel and storm bill adjustments if approved
GCVEF will keep tracking this proceeding
Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund recognizes the meaningful consumer-protection steps in this proposal. Georgia Power did not get everything it asked for, and that matters.
But GCVEF does not view this stipulation as a complete solution.
The PSC should adopt the strongest consumer protections in the proposal, strengthen the final order with clear accountability measures, and ensure customers are protected before any new charges hit bills.
Georgia families deserve an energy system that is affordable, reliable, transparent, and accountable to the people who pay the bills.