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, GA.** — **This week, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), the Sierra Club and SACE (Southern Alliance for Clean Energy) submitted a request to the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) to formally object to Open AI’s contract for electric service with Georgia Power.
In a letter to the PSC, advocates asked the commission to reject Open AI’s request unless robust ratepayer protections and full public transparency are guaranteed.
Open AI’s request for an additional 3.2 gigawatts of power, and the process in which it has made the request with the PSC raises numerous concerns about cost-shifting risks; a lack of transparency in existing agreements which have been heavily redacted; and the discretionary enforcement of the commission’s rule requiring Georgia Power to protect existing customers.
“The magnitude of the load from the announced Open AI project heightens the consequences of any shortcomings in the fully redacted contract’s cost-recovery provisions,” the letter reads. “A contract that does not adequately ensure recovery of all costs incurred to serve the load could leave Georgia Power customers responsible for those costs.”
The objection calls for:
Public transparency: Require unredacted disclosure of key terms for all large-load agreements, including load commitments, schedules, exit provisions, collateral, and specific infrastructure costs.Standardized tariff class: Establish a standard “large-load customer” tariff class rather than relying on individualized, discretionary contracts.Mandatory commission approval: Institute an affirmative vote requirement by the Commission for high-impact contracts, such as loads exceeding 500 MW or infrastructure values over $1 billion.
Advocates recommended the PSC reject the Open AI contract unless it includes more enforceable protections for Georgia Power ratepayers and urged the commission to move forward with more transparency and accountability.
“Redacted in its entirety,” said** Patrick King II, Georgia policy advocate with NRDC**. “That is the level of transparency Georgia Power has provided the public about a contract for what would be the largest customer ever added to Georgia’s electric system, potentially requiring billions of dollars in infrastructure investment to serve a single customer, OpenAI. Georgia Power ratepayers deserve to know what their commissioners are considering and how this could impact their communities and their wallets.
“PSC staff have a responsibility to ensure that the rules governing these massive AI data centers are enforced and that the public is meaningfully protected from the financial risks associated with serving them. Asking Georgia Power’s ratepayers to blindly bear the risks of an investment of this magnitude, primarily to serve a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars, is unconscionable. Transparency and enforceable protections for ratepayers should be the bare minimum for an investment of this scale.”
“Georgia Power wants absolute authority with no accountability,” said Hannah Baker, Organizer with the Sierra Club’s Georgia Chapter. “While communities across Georgia are speaking out about the excessive and speculative data center boom — and voicing real concerns about the impacts on their lives — Georgia Power wants to push through the contract of what could be the largest singular customer ever added to our state’s electrical grid without any transparency and without significant oversight. Georgia Power is not above the law; it cannot redact entire contracts and hide all its plans from public view. The PSC must remind Georgia Power and OpenAI that utility companies and Big Tech do not run the state. The people of Georgia do.”
The public deserves to know everything about the potential monthly power bill and energy impacts of the largest data center in state history before the Public Service Commission approves it,” said Eddy Moore, Decarbonization Director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “This should not be a routine, ‘behind closed doors’ approval process.”
Featured photo by R9 Media Photo Collective
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