February 2, 2025 - Georgia’s largest electric provider is going back on its promise to close coal plants across the state in the face of rising demand for energy, especially from large projects like data centers. Georgia Power’s latest integrated resource plan, or IRP, filed Friday, also includes upgrades to existing nuclear power plants, added renewable energy and improvements to the overall power grid.

“At Georgia Power, our vision extends far beyond today — we plan for tomorrow, the next ten years and decades to come,” said CEO Kim Greene in a statement. “The 2025 IRP provides a comprehensive plan to support Georgia’s continued economic growth and serve Georgians with clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy well into the future.” 

The plan, which the company files with the Georgia Public Service Commission every three years to lay out how it will make and deliver energy, predicts continued major growth in demand. The company is predicting demand will go up by 8,200 megawatts by the winter of 2030-31, more than three times the output of the new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle and 2,200 megawatts above the predictions in last year’s surprise interim IRP.

Environmental advocacy groups criticized Georgia Power for relying heavily on fossil fuels to meet that demand by extending the use of coal plants scheduled for retirement and adding more natural gas. Fossil fuels contribute to climate change and have in recent years driven up customer bills because of volatile fuel costs.

“The only takeaway from this proposal is that Georgia Power doesn’t care if its customers get asthma, lose their homes in stronger and more frequent hurricanes or put off medical care in order to pay their skyrocketing bills,” said G Webber, director of the Sierra Club Georgia chapter. “Georgia Power is only interested in continuing to rake in record profits off our backs.”

The initial filing by the utility Friday is the first step in a months-long planning process. Experts from the Public Service Commission’s staff as well as a broad array of interest groups – including environmental and consumer advocates, industry groups, municipalities and large companies – will weigh in before the commission approves a final version of the plan. 

Then, later in the year, a similar process will set power rates for the next three years.

Extending coal

Georgia Power’s parent, Southern Company, drew big headlines in late 2021 for announcing it would close most of its coal plants in the coming years as part of its stated goal to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In the 2022 IRP, Georgia Power requested and Georgia regulators approved plans to retire nearly all of Georgia Power’s coal plants by 2028, putting off the decision on one plant until this year’s IRP.

But now, Georgia Power is asking permission to keep those plants open. 

Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney Jennifer Whitfield called that an “odd choice.”

“It is not only an expensive and dirty fuel that Georgia Power didn’t even want a couple of years ago for some of these plants, but the data centers don’t want it either,” she said, pointing to a major source of the increased demand. “They want clean energy.”

Though controversial, the proposal to delay coal plant closures isn’t exactly surprising or new. Last year, the Georgia PSC approved a power purchase deal between Georgia Power and its sister company Mississippi Power that will keep a Mississippi coal plant open beyond its planned retirement date. That move, too, was meant to cover rising demand that Georgia Power said came mostly from data centers.

Environmental advocates applauded the coal retirements, and are now decrying the reversals, because of the many negative impacts of burning coal to make electricity. Along with airborne pollution that can harm people and contribute to climate change, burning coal creates residual material known as coal ash that poses serious health risks if it seeps into groundwater. The costs of cleaning up and storing coal ash are passed on to customers.

“Extending the lives of uneconomic coal plants, especially if tied to energy-guzzling data centers, makes no sense when better investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency are clearly available,” said Liz Coyle of consumer advocacy group Georgia Watch. 

Demand growth questions

Although the 2025 IRP builds on the trend of skyrocketing demand predictions in other recent filings from Georgia Power, some consumer advocates are skeptical of the company’s forecasts.

“They’re back with even more outlandish numbers, clearly positioning for another round of profitable construction at ratepayer expense,” said Kim Scott, executive director of the energy equity and anti-nuclear group Georgia WAND.

Georgia Power took the unusual step of filing an IRP update in 2023, claiming that demand for energy was increasing so much and so quickly that the company needed to make and buy more power immediately. The demand, the company said, couldn’t wait for the regularly scheduled planning process in 2025. Commissioners and advocates questioned those projections closely during hearings on the request last year.

“It’s not just a math exercise,” said Jeffrey Grubb, Georgia Power’s director of resource planning, said of the projections at the time. “It’s based on facts. It’s tangible projects.”

Still, PSC staffers tasked with advocating for the public interest sharply criticized how Georgia Power accounted for those projects. The utility’s demand predictions factor in the probability that potential new demand will actually materialize – and in the 2023 IRP update, Georgia Power placed its bet far higher than the norm. Instead of a 50 percent chance, the utility based its forecast on a 95 percent probability.

This time, Whitfield said, “it appears that they are using the mathematical model in a more consistent way with which it was intended.”

Experts have also questioned the projections from Georgia Power’s and other utilities because so much of the demand growth comes from data centers, a rapidly growing sector that multiple states have been vying to attract.

“I think there is a real overestimation of the power requirements throughout the southeast,” Georgia Tech professor and energy expert Marilyn Brown told WABE last year. “[The data center companies are] touring states and they’re asking for the best deal that these states can offer them for clean electricity. So what I’m seeing…it’s like double counting.”

If a company is considering building a data center in either Georgia or Tennessee, for instance, Brown said the utilities in both states may factor in the large energy demands of that potential new customer – even though in reality, only one data center will be built.

Beyond fossil fuels

The extensive plan from Georgia Power does also call for renewables and energy efficiency, as well as improved power transmission lines and other carbon-free energy sources like nuclear.

“Clean energy resources and transmission solutions are vital to reducing customer costs and maintaining the high level of reliability Georgians have grown accustomed to,” said Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, in a statement applauding the 4,000 megawatts of renewable resources by 2035 included in the plan.

The IRP includes several programs mandated by prior agreements between Georgia Power, advocates and the commission staff that clean energy and consumer advocates are excited about. As mandated by the final settlement over the new Plant Vogtle reactors, the company is expanding energy efficiency programs.

“It gives people a little more control over their energy bills, which is exactly what people need right now,” Whitfield said. “It also gives us an opportunity to use less energy rather than build out even more fossil fuels.”

Last year’s agreement to address rising demand, meanwhile, mandated a new pilot program to encourage more rooftop-solar-plus-battery systems and allow Georgia Power to use those systems to power the grid. The idea is that in moments of high demand, the company could use energy stored in lots of small batteries in customers’ garages or parking lots to meet the need instead of firing up a natural gas-powered turbine.

The IRP also calls for upgrades to eke more power out of existing plants, including the older nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle and Plant Hatch – a proposal that Coyle said “appears well-reasoned.” Last year, state leaders including Governor Brian Kemp and members of the PSC signaled their support for more new nuclear after the completion of the new construction at Plant Vogtle. But the IRP doesn’t go that far, relying instead on upgrades to existing reactors. 

For all of these proposals and projections, though, “the devil’s in the details,” Whitfield said. The commission, its staff and the many interest groups who intervene in the proceedings will dig into those details in a series of public hearings.

“All of those assumptions that Georgia Power is making and presenting will be tested,” Whitfield said. “And a lot of other ideas will be coming to the forefront over the next weeks and months, challenging sort of how accurate they are and what the folks in Georgia really think about them.”