Georgia PSC Staff Has Until Mid-August to Object to Georgia Power's 3.2 GW OpenAI Contract; No Commission Vote Is Required

Who at the Georgia Public Service Commission decides whether a 3.2-gigawatt data center contract protects everyone else on Georgia Power’s system? In the first instance, the commission staff does, and the five elected commissioners may never vote at all ^[1].

Georgia Power submitted a 100-page unsigned contract for electric service to OpenAI’s planned campus in Effingham County on July 15, Commissioner Peter Hubbard told The Current ^[1]. Hubbard said he expects it to take effect Aug. 14 ^[1]. Between now and then, the only formal check is whether PSC staff files an objection.

How the contract reaches the PSC

The process starts with a rule the PSC adopted unanimously on Jan. 23, 2025. It lets Georgia Power bill new customers using more than 100 megawatts on terms beyond those for standard customers, including contracts of up to 15 years instead of five and minimum billing requirements ^[3]. Those customers pay for site-specific costs and for upstream generation, transmission and distribution costs as construction of the data center progresses ^[3]. The rule also requires that any new Georgia Power contract with a customer in that category “must be submitted to the PSC for review” ^[3].

A commission order from April 2025, as The Current describes it, adds the clock. Georgia Power must provide the PSC every new data center contract over 100 MW at least 30 days before execution, and staff can file objections, after which “the company and commission staff will work together in good faith to resolve any such objections” ^[1]. If staff files nothing within 30 days, the contract is considered approved. If staff does object, the contract is still approved if the commission takes no action within 30 days of the staff filing ^[1].

So there are two paths, and neither requires a vote. “There is no effective contract date until both parties sign, which I would expect to happen promptly 30 days after filing,” Hubbard said ^[1].

No docket number for the OpenAI contract appears in the record this column draws on, and the contract itself is not public ^[1].

What the load looks like

Georgia Power’s July 22 release says OpenAI “is expected to need approximately 3,200 megawatts (MW) of power,” delivered in phases from 2028 to 2032 ^[1,2]. That is 32 times the rule’s 100 MW threshold ^[1].

The second number matters as much. OpenAI has agreed to provide up to 1,000 MW of flexible demand response, and under the 25-year agreement Georgia Power can reduce energy delivered to the facility “during certain times to support stability of the electric grid” ^[2]. The utility says that commitment lets it invest in fewer new generation resources, and calls it among the largest single-facility demand response commitments in the country ^[2]. The release does not say how many hours a year the curtailment can run, what notice OpenAI gets, or whether the 1,000 MW changes what OpenAI pays.

The campus itself, a $20 billion project known as Project Camellia, is planned as four buildings at the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub, a 2,600-acre site outside Rincon owned by the Effingham County Industrial Development Authority ^[4]. The county filed a Development of Regional Impact form on July 22 describing about 101 acres of data center buildings, with “Octans GA LLC c/o Butler Snow” listed as developer ^[4]. Georgia Power spokesman Joshua Peacock said the plans and routing for serving the site “are still under development” ^[4].

Who carries the cost if OpenAI leaves early

Georgia Power’s answer is that OpenAI “will pay the full infrastructure and electric service costs to serve its facility” and that the contract will “include financial assurances designed to protect Georgia Power customers” ^[2]. The utility ties those terms to the January 2025 rule ^[2].

The question the rule leaves open is how long the assurances last. A 15-year contract protects other customers only as far as its exit terms do. At a forum in Savannah in June, Hubbard said loopholes in the 2025 rules allow a company to make only four years of payments instead of a full 15, according to The Current ^[1]. At a Savannah event on Saturday he applied the concern to the OpenAI deal: “it’s a long-dated contract, but they can get out of that contract before the end of it, and so the dollars aren’t there to go to the end of the contract” ^[1]. If that happens, he said, “someone has to pay for the infrastructure that was built” ^[1].

Whether this contract has that gap cannot be checked from outside. The minimum bill, the collateral and the exit fee are in a document no one outside the company, the customer and the commission has published ^[1]. As this column noted on July 10, Wisconsin put those terms in a public tariff and the fight was over a credit rating. Georgia’s model handles them contract by contract.

Georgia Power points to bills going the other way. It says its large-load strategy helped deliver its earlier base rate freeze and a plan to provide annual savings of $102 for the typical residential customer beginning in 2029 ^[2].

What else the county gave

The power contract is one of several concessions. OpenAI will receive a 50% property tax abatement for 15 years, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, as cited by The Current ^[4]. The company has promised $80 million in community benefits and says its commitments will be audited annually by an independent firm; its announcement does not say when or where the findings will be published, The Current reported ^[4]. The site sits in the Floridan aquifer “Red Zone,” where permitted withdrawals have been reduced to guard against saltwater intrusion; OpenAI says it will use a closed-loop water system ^[4].

Where the sides stand

Georgia Power. Aaron Mitchell, senior vice president of strategic growth, said the company works to “help ensure that growth from data centers and other large-energy users brings value for our customers through higher reliability and lower prices” ^[2]. The utility describes the OpenAI contract as under “rigorous” review with PSC staff ^[2].

The commission. Hubbard, elected to a one-year term in a November 2025 special election and on the ballot again this fall, says the contract lacks a clean energy provision and that he is skeptical the payments will flow if the company’s plans fall through ^[1]. Fitz Johnson, a former commissioner and Hubbard’s opponent in that race, told The Current that “Georgia’s large-load customer protections are among the strongest in the country,” and added that the rules “have to be enforced” and that “the Public Service Commission must ensure these agreements are followed” ^[1].

The governor. Gov. Brian Kemp said communities, not the state, should decide where data centers go, and said the Effingham project was not announced “in the dead of the night” because OpenAI had met with local officials and utilities in advance ^[5].

Residents and environmental groups. Jeff Beauvais of One Hundred Miles said “a lot of these details and decisions have already been made, and we’re playing catch up” ^[4]. Beth Remmes of Georgia Interfaith Power & Light said company representatives at OpenAI’s open house told her diesel generators would back up “a small part of the system,” and asked to see that “written down and explained” ^[5]. Residents near the site who learned of the project on announcement day told The Current they were frustrated at the lack of community input ^[4].

What I’m watching

Aug. 14. The date Hubbard expects the contract to take effect, unless staff objects first ^[1]. An objection would start a second 30-day period in which the commission could act ^[1].

The terms. Whether the minimum bill, collateral and exit provisions behind Georgia Power’s “financial assurances” are ever filed in a form the public can read ^[1,2].