Georgia utilities tell committee they are prepared for data‑center surge, point to planning and new contract rules

Leaders from the Public Service Commission and major Georgia utilities told the House Economic Development Committee that the state has the planning and regulatory tools to meet unprecedented electricity demand driven largely by data centers while preserving reliability for residents.

Chairman Jason Shaw, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission, told the committee the commission’s primary focus is reliability. “That’s our focus is reliability,” Shaw said, and he pointed lawmakers to the commission’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) process as the core long‑range planning tool that guides generation and transmission decisions.

The discussion matters because utilities and economic developers reported rapid load growth over the last two years. Shaw said the Georgia Power system was “a little under 17,000 megawatts” before the recent rush and that the pipeline of proposed projects rose from roughly 16,000 megawatts in 2023 to “about 40,000 megawatts” today, with the commission and utilities planning for a portion of that — “if, let’s say, 8,000 or so of those megawatts … actually hit on the Georgia Power System,” Shaw said.

Shaw descri…