1. United States
2. Ga.
3. Letter

Georgia Senate Bill 34 aims to prevent Georgia Power from passing on the costs of providing electricity to data centers to residential and small-business customers. As Sen. Chuck Hufstetler rightly points out, data centers require considerable resources and should pay their fair share of the investments needed to meet their energy demands. The Public Service Commission has already taken steps to prohibit such cost-shifting to residential and small-business ratepayers, but legislation like SB 34 is needed to ensure long-term protection for citizens. The rapid growth of the data center industry in Georgia has led to concerns over the significant increase in electricity demand, with Georgia Power estimating that 80% of its projected 6,600 megawatts of additional capacity would be required for energy-intensive data centers. While data centers contribute to property taxes, allowing a monopoly utility like Georgia Power to pass on the costs of serving these large-load customers to residential and small-business ratepayers would be unfair. SB 34 seeks to safeguard the interests of ordinary citizens and small businesses by preventing them from bearing the burden of subsidizing the energy needs of data centers. It is crucial to ensure that the costs of powering these resource-intensive facilities are borne by the data center operators themselves, rather than being passed on to ratepayers who have no direct benefit from their operations.