Georgia voters rejected high utility bills and data center risk-shifting
In his essay, “Data centers in Georgia should lead the way on clean energy sources,” former Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols ignores his own vote to approve dirty fossil energy sources for data centers, just days before the end of his term.
He argues that data centers should lead America into a nuclear future and insists ratepayers are protected. But Georgia voters don’t buy it. And they delivered a decisive verdict in the recent PSC election to say so.
On Dec. 19, Echols voted to approve a massive grid expansion of 10,000 megawatts of primarily gas-fired power to meet speculative data center demand. But an AJC investigation showed last year, and numerous experts have testified, that Georgia Power Co.’s demand projections are historically overblown, leading to an inefficient and overbuilt grid and a key reason why Georgia ranks eighth in the nation for high utility costs.
The former commissioner touts this grid expansion as providing “downward pressure on rates” of a few dollars per month, while ignoring the new and much larger upward pressure on rates it will cause.
In fact, residential rates have already increased six times between 2022 and 2024, in part to keep Georgia Power’s profits well above industry norms, and the 2025 rate freeze locked in those high profits for three years. And it also ignores history: In 2018, Georgia Power claimed Plant Vogtle would put “downward pressure on rates for 60 to 80 years.” In fact, Vogtle Units 3 and 4 permanently raised residential rates 25%, the largest rate increase in state history.
Don’t repeat the mistake with ‘speculative’ nuclear projects
Echols claims that data centers “pay all incremental costs” on the new gas power plants, which have a 45-year mortgage. This ignores how monopoly utility regulation works.
Georgia Power earns a guaranteed rate of return on capital investments approved by the PSC. Bigger systems mean bigger profits. Even if data centers are assigned incremental costs, the utility spreads risk through complex rate structures and socializes long-term liabilities.
Echols calls Georgia Power’s “financial backstop” a consumer protection. But the new PSC data center rule was put in place in 2025 only after many contracts were signed, providing fewer consumer protections for grid expansion to date. Moreover, the rule gives Georgia Power discretion on what to charge data centers (hidden behind trade secret redactions) and the rule can be changed or eliminated by the PSC with a 30-day notice.
After the massive cost overruns of Plant Vogtle, Echols wants to repeat his mistake on nuclear.
The fact is there are no commercial small modular nuclear reactors operating today in the United States. Only one such technology is even licensed.
Data center power demand will not be met with speculative projects. Even Big Tech has the capital discipline to avoid risk, seek subsidies, negotiate tax abatements and socialize infrastructure costs wherever regulators have allowed it, as in Georgia.
Georgians did not oust incumbents out of AI fear
Georgia voters understand this. They see data centers receiving tax breaks as their power bills go up. They see local communities struggle with competition for water supplies and high voltage transmission lines that reduce property values. And they see how the PSC approved every request placed before it by the monopoly electric utility.
That is why opposition to data centers is growing in Georgia; because Georgians oppose being treated as collateral damage by the unregulated growth of data centers that will push their power bills even higher. And that is why voters delivered a decisive message in the elections on Nov. 4.
Echols’ sudden pivot in his essay to artificial intelligence morality and religious bias only underscores the disconnect.
Georgians did not vote based on abstract fears of algorithmic worldview discrimination. They voted because their electric bills went up six times in three years under his watch, while Georgia Power’s profits of $2.5 billion in 2024 broke records.
Georgia voters rejected a regulatory system that delivers outsize corporate profits because of unaffordable power bills. With Echols’ lame duck vote to shift data center risk onto ratepayers, he shows he still doesn’t get it.
The former commissioner is right about one thing: Data centers should not be built on the backs of hardworking Georgians. The problem is that under the policies he supported, they already are.
Peter Hubbard was elected to serve on the Georgia Public Service Commission on Nov. 4. The PSC is the state constitutionally mandated five-member elected body that regulates utility and telecommunications rates in the Peach State.
