[Updated 27 October 2026 to correct the description of the Real-Time Pricing rate and the hearing calendar.]
When a giant new customer drives up Georgia Power’s fuel costs, who pays the bill, that customer or you? The Georgia Public Service Commission is deciding that question now, in Docket 57171, and the answer will show up on your power bill.
This docket will not fix everything. Data centers raise Georgians’ costs in many ways, and this is one specific piece the PSC can fix this year.
Large customers buy power on a rate households cannot use
Georgia Power’s largest customers, data centers among them, buy much of their electricity on a rate called Real-Time Pricing (RTP). RTP is a long-standing rate for commercial and industrial customers using 250 kilowatts or more, about the size of a large grocery store. Households cannot use it. New data centers are driving the growth in RTP use.
The Commission opened Docket 57171 on 2 June 2026 and voted on 7 July to go ahead with the investigation. It asks how the fuel costs of RTP customers are counted, credited and charged.
Georgia Power wants more data centers on its grid, and it offers special rates to attract them. Somebody still has to pay for the gas Georgia Power buys to serve them. Right now, you do.
Fuel costs the biggest users cause can land on your bill
More than a quarter of your bill pays for the fuel that runs power plants, and Georgia Power passes that cost straight through to customers. When the largest customers do not pay the full fuel cost their demand creates, families and small businesses pay the difference.
Commission Staff, in testimony filed in April 2026, found that “the additional large load drives up the average fuel cost in each month by approximately 5 to 11%.”
Customers on RTP contribute $0 in the fuel account toward several costs everyone else pays: new gas pipeline contracts, solar and wind purchases, and the senior citizen fuel discount. From June 2026 to May 2028 those costs add up to nearly $1 billion, and families and small businesses cover it.
Georgia Power does not dispute the $0. It says RTP customers make up the difference elsewhere in their bills, and that the money reaches other customers later, through a future rate case. Nobody has checked that against today’s demand. Georgia’s last full cost-of-service study, the analysis that sorts out who causes which costs, was filed in 2022, before the data center surge.
Georgia Power’s fix covers about an eighth of the costs
On 14 August Georgia Power proposed that large customers pay the new gas pipeline costs they cause. That reaches about $118 million of the nearly $1 billion. The rest stays where it is, and four more cost categories have no public number at all.
Under Georgia Power’s approach, the public would not see proof that the costs balance out until the 2028 rate case. The Commission can check the math now.
The Commission can fix this piece in Docket 57171
The PSC has the authority to:
- reassign fuel costs so large customers cover the costs they cause
- protect households with a “no cross-subsidy” rule that keeps large-load costs out of residential rates
- require public reporting, in plain language, of who pays for what.
Costs caused by data centers should stay with data centers.
One hearing remains before the 15 December vote
Tell the PSC before 14 December
Tell the Georgia PSC that costs caused by data centers should stay with data centers, not shift onto the families and small businesses who were here all along.
- File a public comment on Docket 57171 at psc.ga.gov/public-comments. You do not have to be a party to the case. Comments must arrive at least 24 hours before the vote, so 14 December is the last day.
- Come to the 12 November hearing.
- Follow the People’s Power Union for comment guides and hearing reminders.
Growth should pay for growth.
