Support CleanTechnica's work througha Substack subscription,on Patreon, oron Stripe. Help us produce all of thehigh-quality, original content we publish week after weekdespite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles.ATLANTA — After a tumultuous and secretive process, the Georgia Public Service Commission staff approved the contract between Georgia Power and OpenAI to power a 3.2 gigawatt hyperscale data center planned for Effingham County — without a direct vote from the commission itself.
In response, Sierra Club and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy released the following statements:
“Thanks to the public outcry against Georgia Power’s secrecy, the Public Service Commission took the first steps to bring the OpenAI development out of the dark. While this agreement is a step toward protecting ratepayers and increasing transparency, it is not enough. The Commissioners at the PSC must be empowered to weigh-in on future contract decisions,” said Hannah Baker, Organizer with Sierra Club’s Georgia Chapter. “The people of Georgia are angry at what they see as a reckless rush to build A.I. data centers with no regard to the communities they impact. We cannot allow more backroom deals that benefit Georgia Power’s profit-driven loyalty to data centers to steamroll public accountability.”
“Instead of a transparent review by elected Commissioners, PSC staff and Georgia Power co-released a letter that appears designed to alleviate the public’s concerns about whether this huge data center will raise everyone’s electric bills. But instead of providing answers, this letter leaves key questions unanswered: how is Georgia Power calculating the cost to serve these data centers, and what protections are in place for a contract of this size in the event the data center leaves or requires less power and Georgia Power isn’t able to backfill that load?” said Maggie Shober, Research Director at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE). “I appreciate that the PSC staff are in a difficult position in reviewing these contracts. It is up to the Commission itself to update this process to provide transparency and accountability to the public.”
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