Georgia Power strikes deal that could slightly lower customers’ bills

Georgia Power reached a tentative deal Tuesday in a pair of cases involving its storm damage and fuel costs that could bring monthly bill savings of roughly $4.04 to the average residential customer starting in June.

The proposed monthly savings are more significant than the $1.32 bill decrease Georgia Power initially floated earlier this year, but financial impacts for customers will vary based on their billing plan and energy habits. The company’s projected savings are for residential customers who use 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month, considered “average” for measuring rate impacts.

The agreement between the company and the Public Service Commission’s public interest advocacy staff, known as a stipulation, is not final. It still needs approval from a majority of the PSC’s five members, who are slated to vote on the plan later this month. But if past cases are any guide, the commission’s final order is likely to closely resemble the preliminary agreement.

What’s behind the proposed savings?

The deal would resolve two major cases the PSC has heard in recent weeks.

The first concerns $912 million in costs Georgia Power has accumulated in recent years to repair the grid and restore electricity after storms. The overwhelming majority of those costs were caused by 2024’s Hurricane Helene, widely considered Georgia’s most destructive storm on record.

The second case centers on the utility’s expenses for fuel used at its power plants. Customers pay for fuel through a charge rolled into their monthly bills. In recent years, customers had been paying significantly more for fuel to cover a massive tab Georgia Power accumulated after the war in Ukraine pushed oil and gas prices up.

In its initial filings, Georgia Power asked to raise base rates to cover storm costs, while reducing the fuel expenses in customers’ monthly bills. The net result would have been an estimated monthly bill savings of $1.32 for the average residential ratepayer.

Under the deal reached between the PSC’s staff and Georgia Power, fuel charges in customers’ bills would be trimmed, along with the revenue the utility is allowed to collect for storm costs. The result is a projected $4.04 in monthly bill savings.

In a written statement, Georgia Power’s treasurer and CFO Tyler Cook said that thanks to cooperation between the company, the PSC’s staff and other parties, they now “expect to be able to provide significantly more savings than we anticipated in February when we filed these cases.”

What issues are still unresolved?

As part of the agreement, the PSC would also take a closer look at how the company allocates certain fuel expenses — specifically the cost of “firm transportation” required to bring fuel, like oil and gas, to power plants.

Georgia Power is building new power plants across the state, largely to serve the energy-hungry data centers that have flocked to the state. Some of those power plants require new pipelines and other infrastructure so that fuel can be delivered.

During hearings last week, some parties said they fear residential customers and smaller businesses could wind up paying for those data center-related infrastructure costs.

Jennifer Whitfield, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said she remains concerned the company is shifting data center costs onto other customers but praised the PSC’s staff for negotiating “some big improvements.”

The stipulation would also require Georgia Power meet with regulatory staff to discuss the company’s storm response protocols.

In filed testimony, PSC staff and outside experts said it appeared the company often failed to use industry best practices before and after storms. The experts said they couldn’t determine exactly how much missteps affected storm expenses, but said failures “likely led to excessive costs due to unnecessary and inefficient resourcing.”

Tuesday’s deal was unveiled one day before hearings on the company’s storm expenses were set to begin, and roughly a week after fuel case proceedings wrapped up. Tom Krause, the PSC’s public information officer, said storm cost hearings set for Wednesday and Thursday would go on as planned.

Meanwhile, early voters across the state are already heading to the polls to cast ballots in partisan primaries for the two PSC seats that are on ballots. The last day for early voting is Friday, May 15 and Election Day is Tuesday, May 19.