April 30, 2024, marks the two-year anniversary of the completion of Plant Vogtle, the only nuclear reactors built in the United States in the past 30 years. While state leaders celebrate it as a triumph, for Georgia Power customers experiencing two years of high electricity bills, this anniversary is not a celebration. It is a reminder that state law rewards Georgia Power for spending money but provides no incentive to save money. The result is inevitable: Georgia Power will spend big in pursuit of shareholder profits, and that’s exactly what happened with Plant Vogtle.
Just one month after Vogtle was completed, Georgia Power customers had a modern “let them eat cake” moment. On May 31, 2024, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm joined federal and state officials at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Waynesboro. No one mentioned the $17 billion in cost overruns or the 25 percent residential rate increase for Georgia Power customers to pay for it.
Why?
Because those praising the project were not paying. Secretary Granholm is not a Georgia Power customer. Until last November’s PSC elections, neither were any of the Georgia Public Service Commissioners. They pay their electricity bills to an Electric Membership Corporation, nonprofits with far lower rates.
Leaders applauded, speeches were made, and cake was served, while the people footing the bill were not in the room.
Georgia Power customers are in an impossible situation: state law rewards utility spending but provides no performance or cost saving rewards. Georgia Power’s lawyers at Troutman Pepper donate tens of thousands of dollars annually to commissioners deciding their cases, also legal under state law. The results of such donations are difficult to ignore: a pattern of deference to the utility in PSC proceedings and utility profits set far above industry norms.
In every direction, state law favors Georgia Power. In 2010 legislators repealed Georgia’s independent consumer advocate just as Plant Vogtle was beginning, a role so critical that 45 states fund this critical office. For the past two years legislators have blocked its return. Legislators also refuse to pass legislation to allow intervenors to obtain discovery rights in Georgia Power’s proceedings at the PSC, leaving Georgia as the only state in the nation with no advocate and no ability for lawyers to access information in a legal proceeding.
The results have been devastating: residential rates have increased 50 percent since 2010, which is far higher than inflation, while industrial rates have increased only 15 percent. Industrial electricity rates in Georgia are 53% below the national average which is why data centers are flocking to Georgia.
Meanwhile, Georgia Power enjoys enormous profits from the system put in place for them. In 2025 the monopoly earned a record $2.81 billion in profits, a figure so large that Southern Company characterized 2025 as “a transformative year” for its shareholders, most of whom are out of state.
Back in Georgia, residential customers also saw new records: Georgia Power utility bills the size of car payments and a residential disconnection rate that is 10 times higher than industry norms. In 2025, 273,800 Georgia Power households were disconnected.
There can be no credible claim that state leaders are properly regulating a monopoly when it spends 10 times the cost for nuclear power vs. what other types of generation would cost. This is why no other state is building nuclear generation: it is far more expensive.
Now an even more dire situation has arrived: data centers. It is impossible to overstate the costs and risks of what Georgia Power is spending for data centers. Southern Company’s annual report shows a figure of $35 billion. Equity research firms put Georgia’s spending for data centers closer to $80 billion.
Despite these enormous risks, both the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions closed without a single bill to address the systemic issues that led to Vogtle and that now puts us at risk for data centers. PSC rules adopted last year will not protect consumers from those costs.
The problem is with leadership: Senator Matt Brass, chairman of the Rules Committee, blocked SB94, which would have established a consumer advocate for the PSC. House Speaker Jon Burns blocked HB446, which would have established discovery rights. Lt. Governor Burt Jones blocked SB34, which would have required utilities to charge data centers for the grid expansion, and blocked SB410 which would have repealed data center tax breaks. Representative Don Parsons, chairman of the Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications, blocked HB 1304, which would have allowed balcony solar.
Eighteen months after Public Service Commissioners enjoyed cake in the shape of nuclear reactors, two of them were gone, removed by voters in last November’s PSC elections.
The same needs to happen at the legislature. Lt. Governor Burt Jones, Speaker Jon Burns, Senator Matt Brass, and Representative Don Parsons have each shown little interest in addressing the serious problems with utility affordability in Georgia. These decisions were made in public, recorded in law, and are reflected every time someone in Georgia opens a utility bill.
These leaders have credible opponents in this year’s elections. Until voters hold them accountable, the incentives for Georgia Power to spend big will continue.
