Georgia Power and Google have struck a deal for the tech giant pay a premium for new electricity coming from planned upgrades to the utility’s nuclear reactors, a move the companies say will ease the cost of those improvements for other customers.
Georgia Power wants to upgrade two of its older reactors at Plant Vogtle, near Augusta, and two at Plant Hatch, west of Savannah. The improvements would put roughly 100 megawatts total of emission-free electricity on the power grid, which the utility already is expanding at an unprecedented rate to serve data centers.
For its part, Google, a major data center operator, has agreed to pay a premium for that new electricity as part of a new program Georgia Power submitted to state regulators late Monday afternoon. The electric company said in a news release that the money from Google will equate to $900 million in “projected benefits” to customers over the life of the units.
The reactors at Plant Hatch have been approved to run until 2054 and 2058, respectively. Georgia Power owns 50.1% of each reactor.
“This collaboration with Georgia Power ensures that digital infrastructure growth goes hand-in-hand with positive local impact,” Lucia Tian, Google’s director for Advanced Energy Technologies, said in a statement.
Georgia is a top market for data center construction and the surge in new server farms has pushed Georgia Power into a historic expansion of its power generating fleet. Most of the 10,000 megawatts of approved new generation is handled by natural gas-burning units, which will produce greenhouse gas emissions, though the utility is also adding solar and battery storage.
A letter from the electric company to the Georgia Public Service Commission said it expects the Google revenue to generate what the utility calls “downward pressure” on customers’ rates. This typically means that rates are lower than they would have been without additional revenue from another source.
“We appreciate Google’s continued leadership in this space and partnership in developing this program,” Aaron Mitchell, senior vice president of strategic growth for Georgia Power, said in a statement.
The agreement bucks the utility’s typical process of building, operating and sometimes improving power plants and other infrastructure, such as transmission lines, and then collecting that money from customers in their monthly electricity bills. It also is the latest of multiple potential cost-saving announcements from Georgia Power after a series of rate hikes in recent years.
Last year, Georgia Power proposed and received approval for a historic power grid expansion to support data centers that drew the ire of its customers and led to a political upheaval at the PSC.
The PSC already signed off on the improvements at Vogtle and needs to do so for Hatch.
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Monday’s documents map out the schedule and payment structure for those upgrades, known in the electric utility industry as “uprates.”
Uprates allow a nuclear reactor to operate more efficiently so that it can make more electricity. To do this, workers make surgical modifications and upgrades to key plant equipment, including turbines, pumps, motors and cooling systems.
Georgia Power said it also would use federal and state tax credits and a pending loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy to offset some of the upgrade costs.
The agreement comes at a time when Georgia Power and its parent, Southern Co., said publicly it continues to feed an increasing pipeline of data centers coming to the state, which already has more data centers under construction than anywhere else in the U.S.
The sprawling, computer-filled warehouses use gigantic amounts of electricity to support the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, advanced computing and the overall digital economy.
The backlash against data centers is growing, as critics worry about rising electricity bills as well as air, water and noise pollution. Many have accused elected leaders and business officials of keeping the public out of discussions with data center operators, denying their chance to give input.
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
What’s more, Georgia Power is among the dozens of electric companies turning largely to gas-fired power plants to support the surge in electricity demand, despite recent warnings from the United Nations that the world is expected to surpass global temperature rise targets unless all countries take steps to zero out those emissions.
The power sector is the second-largest contributor of carbon emissions. The Trump administration last week announced it cut emissions limits for fossil fuel power plants, paving the way for older units to remain operating and for more to be built in lieu of cleaner power options.
This is the latest measure from Georgia Power to rein in power rates for customers, who want more assurances that they will not pay electricity or infrastructure costs for data centers.
The PSC in January 2025 approved new rules for Georgia Power that are supposed to ensure data centers pay their fair share to operate and that customers aren’t stuck with additional costs. In December, the electric company agreed to tamp down its 2028 rate plan by an average $8.50 in exchange for the PSC letting the utility roughly double the size of its power grid by 2030.
After a pending electricity contract with OpenAI drew scrutiny because its planned data center would be the No. 1 electricity user in Georgia, Georgia Power upped the amount that it would offset 2028 rates to $15 and said if the hyperscaler or any other data center operator terminates a contract early, other customers will not have to pay for that revenue shortfall.
A note of disclosure
This coverage is supported by a partnership with Green South Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners. You can learn more and support our climate reporting by donating at ajc.com/donate/climate.
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