Georgia’s population is surging, with the metro Atlanta area alone projected to add two million residents by 2050, according to a new study from the Atlanta Regional Commission. Driven by rapid residential growth and the AI expansion, Georgia also faces a surge in electricity demand that its primary electric utility must fulfill.
Georgia Power Company, an investor-owned entity serving 2.8 million customers across 155 counties, estimates 9,000 megawatts of load growth over the next six years. Georgia Power laid out its infrastructure strategy in its 2025 Integrated Resource Plan, which received approval from the Georgia Public Service Commission last July.
Although population gains and data center development dominate the headlines, Georgia’s IRP also acknowledges massive baseline needs from advanced manufacturing, noted Meredith Stone, media relations manager for the utility.
Capturing these complex inputs means tracking macroeconomic shifts, population changes and customer power usage over a decades-long period. Other key inputs include weather patterns, historical electrical usage and local economic development activity. Georgia Power refines its forecast as conditions evolve, with ongoing findings reviewed by the state PSC.
The utility’s latest IRP projects historic demand growth over the next decade, mostly driven by hyperscale data center expansion. Georgia’s data center boom encompasses OpenAI's Project Camellia as well as developments in Hampton, Douglas, Bartow, Coweta, and DeKalb counties. According to OpenAI, its massive data center in Effingham County could eventually require up to 3.2 gigawatts of power.
Faced with a regional demand spike, Georgia Power won state approval to bring nearly 9,900 megawatts of new power online between 2027 and 2031. About two-thirds of this capacity will derive from natural gas-fired units, with the remainder filled by standalone battery energy storage or battery systems paired with renewable resources, said Stone.
“Rather than relying on a single solution, we pursue a diverse energy mix that includes generation resources, transmission investments, demand-side programs, battery storage, and customer flexibility options,” Stone said in an email. “The (utility’s) target reserve margin and amounts of needed capacity are updated with the latest information and filed with any request at the PSC for new generation resources.”
Riding the wave
Utility officials know that long-term load forecasting carries risks, considering that data center projects may shift, scale back or fail to materialize. A balanced supply portfolio helps the utility adapt to these changing conditions, including the volatility of data center planning and construction, said Stone.
As the largest electric subsidiary owned and operated by Southern Company, Georgia Power uses generation planning, transmission expansion, operational improvements, and demand-management tools to support statewide energy growth. Forward-looking grid planning is essential, given that data centers can be brought online much faster than transmission infrastructure, Stone added.
“Increasingly, load flexibility is becoming an important part of that strategy,” she said. “Large-load customers can adjust energy use during periods of system need when notified by Georgia Power. This provides an additional tool to help manage growth responsibly and support reliability for all customers.”
In the meantime, environmental advocacy groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council urge caution, maintaining that Georgia Power's load projections depend too heavily on a speculative marketplace.
“By failing to account for those risks, or to clearly identify the costs tied specifically to large data customers, the plan offers no assurance that everyday Georgians won’t end up subsidizing an industry with uncertain benefits,” the NRDC said in a July 2025 release. “In times of uncertainty, the planning process should lean cautious. Instead, what we got was a rush job to green-light a massive build-out, without the safeguards that ratepayers deserve.”
To mitigate impact on customers, the utility has frozen its base rates “at least” through 2028 – when the rate freeze ends, incremental revenue from large-energy users will produce $180 in annual savings for residents using an average of 1,000 kilowatt hours per month.
Pointing to recent regulatory wins, Stone said that approval of the utility's fuel and storm recovery cases has translated into a $50 annual savings for residential households.
“Data centers will pay more so residents and small businesses can pay less,” Stone said. “We remain committed to handling the growth in Georgia responsibly while ensuring it benefits our customers. These facilities are being constructed in our communities, too.”
Faced with an incoming wave of residents and large-scale energy consumers, Georgia Power and the PSC must be proactive in safeguarding both local consumers and businesses, said Stone.
“As Georgia grows and the demand for electricity increases - including from large-load users like data centers - we may be the only state leveraging large-load customer demand to help lower customer rates,” Stone said. “We are also successful in accommodating new load growth due to our long-standing market structure with a state-regulated, vertically integrated utility. (Through this relationship), we are focused on long-term costs and benefits, as well as a structured stakeholder process through IRP and certification hearings.”
