However, these major investments come with significant costs as well. Data centers require enormous amounts of electricity which then necessitates significant increases in power generation and transmission capacity. The Georgia Public Service Commission has been struggling with this since 2022 as the data center investments continued to increase( exponentially in the last couple of years, in particular). Since 1991 when the Georgia General Assembly( Rep. Boyd Pettit( D-Cartersville)) passed the Integrated Resources Planning Act, Georgia has been requiring a 20-year resource plan every three years from Georgia Power based on growth projections. In 2023, Georgia Power proposed an Interim Integrated Resource Plan(“ IRP”) even after a large capacity allocation from the 2022 IRP to cover the ballooning energy demands of projected data center growth, an indicator of how much investment was landing in development queues. This tremendous growth, the magnitude of which we have never seen requires careful utility planning, significant increases in generation development and long-term grid decisions. Over 80 % of the load growth on our grid has come from new and proposed data centers. The question is not simply whether Georgia can serve these projects. The question is whether we can serve them without shifting unfair costs onto existing residential and small business customers. In fact, the Georgia Public Service Commission( PSC) approved a rule change by Georgia Power Company last year that seeks to charge new data centers in a manner that will protect ratepayers from cost shifting. This applies to large-load customers using 100 megawatts or more. If these projects all materialize, there will actually be a significant downward pressure on electric rates as fixed asset costs are spread among more customers and more kilowatts driving down per kilowatt energy prices. However, if the large electric loads don’ t materialize, there would be a risk of overdeveloping generation resources. The Public Service Commission Staff will play a key role in verifying the large customers do come online and can advocate for delaying additional generation resources as needed.
Water and land use also must be given serious attention. Newer cooling systems, including closedloop technology, may reduce long-term operational water use, but local communities still need transparent answers about construction water, metering, infrastructure capacity, and environmental impact. If these projects are going to become part of our local communities, transparency has to be part of the deal.
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will be built – it is a question of where. Georgia is wellpositioned to support that growth. In fact, it really is a generational economic development opportunity for our State – this could potentially be an industrial revolution like opportunity if Georgia plays its cards right.
So, the question for our state is not whether data centers are good or bad. The better question is whether we can manage this growth wisely. We should welcome investment that strengthens our tax base and our strategic importance, but we have to protect our ratepayers, our water resources, our local governments, and our long-term energy future. Georgia can lead in digital infrastructure, but only if we continue our planned growth strategy and keeping our communities informed and in control of siting, zoning and permitting of the data center locations. Given that Georgia is set up to continue as a leader in data center development, there’ s still some tug-of-war occurring. In January 2025, Speaker Jon Burns announced the creation of a study committee on Georgia’ s energy and water resources to study accommodating this tremendous growth, especially from data centers. Rep. Brad Thomas( R-Cherokee County) led the Study Committee and made recommendations to the Georgia General Assembly.
This past legislative session saw efforts to slow the state’ s data center growth. Some advocated for moratoriums. However, there was bipartisan opposition to an outright moratorium. Instead, there were legislative efforts to protect rate payers and to pull back on incentives. Senator Matt Brass of Newnan attempted to sunset the data center sales tax exemption, with Senate Bill 410, for both high performance computers and supporting infrastructure, however the legislation was unsuccessful. There were other pieces of legislation that attempted to codify the recent rule passed by the PSC but were all compressed into Senator Brass’ s unsuccessful Senate Bill 410. Lastly, Senate Appropriations Chairman Blake Tillery attempted to immediately end the data center sales tax exemption with his Senate Bill 476 which created the pathway to continue reducing Georgia’ s income tax. None of this legislation made it to the finish line. However, we fully anticipate that many of these ideas and proposed legislation will be brought back and reintroduced in the next legislative session in January 2027.
There is also a national security angle. Data centers support cloud computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, financial systems, health care, logistics, defense applications, emergency communications, and even significant capacity needed for emails and texting. The United States is in a global battle with China for AI dominance, a battle that the United States simply cannot lose. The data centers that support AI www. atlantabar. org THE ATLANTA LAWYER 25