When a giant new customer drives up Georgia Power’s fuel costs, who pays the bill — that customer, or you? That question is in front of the Georgia Public Service Commission right now. How it answers will show up on your power bill.
One piece of a bigger puzzle: This docket won’t fix everything. Data centers drive up Georgians’ costs in many ways — this is one specific piece the PSC can fix right now.
The Issue
Georgia Power’s largest customers — including data centers — buy electricity on a special rate called Real-Time Pricing (RTP), a rate designed for very large industrial loads and not available to regular households or small businesses. On July 7, 2026, the Commission opened a formal investigation (Docket 57171) into how the fuel costs of those giant customers are counted, credited, and charged.
Georgia Power wants more data centers on its grid. To lure them in, it offers special rates.
But somebody has to pay the real cost of the gas Georgia Power is betting on. Right now, that’s you — not the data centers.
The Problem
More than a quarter of your bill goes towards the fuel to run power plants, and Georgia Power passes those costs straight through to customers. When the largest customers aren’t charged for the full fuel costs their demand creates, those costs don’t vanish. It gets recovered from everyone else — including the families and small businesses who aren’t on that special rate.
So costs like gas transportation, clean-energy purchases, the cost of dealing with volatile gas price swings, and even the senior citizen fuel discount can land on your bill instead of theirs:
- Rising demand for gas is driving up your bill. In May 2026, Georgia Public Service Commission staff found that big customers like data centers are pushing up everyone’s fuel costs — by an estimated 5 to 11%.
- You’re already paying for the gas pipelines, the fuel programs, and the cost of dealing with volatile gas price swings.
- The largest customers on this special rate are contributing $0 toward those same fuel categories — new gas transportation, solar and wind purchases, and the senior citizen fuel discount — a gap of nearly $1 billion over two years (June 2026–May 2028) that everyone else covers.
The gas piece is concrete: about $118 million of that two-year gap is the cost of new gas pipeline contracts Georgia Power is locking in— that households and small businesses currently cover, while the large customers on this rate contribute $0 toward it.
Georgia Power concedes that these customers contribute $0 to those categories within the fuel account, and argues its base rates make up the difference. Whether they actually do is exactly what Docket 57171 is investigating.
And Georgia hasn’t done a full cost-of-service study — the analysis that sorts out who really causes which costs — since 2022, before the data center surge.
The Solution
The PSC has the authority to fix this piece. In Docket 57171, the Commission can:
- Reassign fuel costs so large loads cover the costs they actually cause;
- Protect households with a “no cross-subsidy” rule that keeps large-load costs out of residential rates;
- Require transparency — public reporting, in plain language, of who pays for what.
In short: costs caused by data centers should stay with data centers.
What Georgia Power says: trust us, it will work out. But under its own proposal, the public wouldn’t see proof until 2028. The PSC has the authority — and the obligation — to check the math now, not years from now.
The Urgency
The Commission could fix this — or leave it exactly as it is. Which way it goes depends on who’s paying attention. The record is being built at the hearings this fall, and the first hearing is September 1.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| Sept 1, 2026 | Georgia Power hearing |
| Oct 15, 2026 | Intervenor & PSC staff hearing |
| Nov 12, 2026 | Georgia Power rebuttal hearing |
| Dec 15, 2026 | Final decision |
The Action
Tell the Georgia PSC: the costs caused by data centers should stay with data centers — not shift onto the families and small businesses who were here all along.
- Submit a public comment on Docket 57171 — before the September 1 hearing if you can.
- Show up to the hearings above.
- Follow the People’s Power Union for comment guides and hearing reminders.
Growth should pay for growth. Make data centers pay for the costs they cause.