Public Service Commission meets scathing public backlash with stipulated agreement for Georgia Power expansion

Canaries in the coal mine—or, in this case, against the coal plants—raised their voices Wednesday, Dec. 10, in opposition to Georgia Power’s planned expansion, citing myriad negative impacts on people, plants and planet.

The power company’s application to the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) for certification of capacity—seeking an expansion of 10,000 megawatts, almost doubling the current Georgia electric grid—reached stipulated agreement status Dec. 9. A joint PSC and Georgia Power announcement about the agreement was released early on the morning of Dec. 10, ahead of the week’s hearing series. The PSC will vote on the agreement on Friday, Dec. 19.

Minutes after the announcement, as the hearing was about to begin, a group of protesters holding signs against the application and alleging corruption between Georgia Power and the PSC lined up at the front of the PSC meeting room, backs to the two present members of the five-person commission. At the center was Neil Sardana, a longtime conservation and clean energy advocate representing a group called PSC Power Coalition, so named for its opposition to the current PSC and its corporate backers.

As Sardana began reading a list of the group’s demands, PSC public information officer Tom Krause directed a law enforcement officer to eject the group from the meeting. Krause meanwhile snatched Sardana’s speech from his hand. As the group chanted “Stop being crooked cowards—rein in Georgia Power!” PSC Chairman Jason Shaw retreated to a back room. Audience members joined in from their seats while a member of the group reiterated that the PSC and Georgia Power had already reached an agreement, declaring the hearing a sham.

A few minutes later, after the hearing began, the officer returned with backup to remove protesters who had reassumed their seats at the front of the audience and agreed to comply with hearing rules. Not present at the time were Commissioner Tricia Pridemore and both lame-duck commissioners, Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson, both losing in November’s PSC elections—widely viewed as a referendum on the all-Republican PSC’s allowance of six Georgia Power rate increases in three years, at a reported average hike of $40 per month for the average Georgia household.

Press conference enumerates dozens of people’s demands for PSC

The agreement announcement came less than an hour before the PSC hearing, while many constituents were denouncing the application at a press conference outside the Coverdell Legislative Office Building in downtown Atlanta, where the PSC meets.

The coalition holding the press conference, which includes former PSC candidate and Georgians for Affordable Energy founder Patty Durand, unfurled a list of 55 demands at the building entrance. The demands fall under broad categories of health and climate concern, affordability, data center regulations, transparency and accountability and an end to “Georgia Power profits at the people’s expense.” 

“The (DeKalb County) Board of Commissioners passed a resolution urging the PSC to respectfully consider postponing the Dec. 19, 2025, vote, so that the full commission seated for the 2026 term can participate in the decision-making process,” said Rev. Keyanna Jones Moore, senior environmental policy aide to DeKalb County Commissioner Ted Terry, who on Tuesday (Dec. 16) successfully lobbied fellow commissioners for a six-month moratorium on data centers in the county, which he noted the commission could scuttle anytime. 

For the application under examination, the group demands a delay on approval until Georgia Power evaluates solutions with lower emissions and costs, an end to rubber-stamping utility proposals with restored transparency to the regulatory process and no more than one-third of the requested wattage being approved. But news broke against those demands while members of the coalition unfurled the scroll.

“Basically, all 10,000 megawatts of the request were approved,” Peter Hubbard reported at the press conference, having sworn in as PSC commissioner-elect in preparation for his 2026 term after his victory over Johnson in November. “It’s not surprising to me. I feel like this decision was kind of already pre-made, in a sense …. I think 10,000 megawatts is far beyond what was prudent to approve.”

Hubbard said the PSC had not done true due diligence on this expansion, which PSC staff had recommended approving no more than one-third of—approximately 3,333 megawatts. He said he did not believe the PSC analysis had included a cost of service study demonstrating the risks to approving full expansion. He expects Georgia households will be forced to bear the consequences, including more fugitive emissions and climate change results from increased natural gas use.

“The nature of this agreement—and it being a surprise on a day when everyone’s showing up for hearings—it sort of speaks to the fact that a lot of these are done in a back room,” Hubbard said. “This is a decision that just seems to have appeared magically out of nowhere with a modest amount of back-and-forth.”

The cavalcade of speakers from across Georgia nevertheless addressed the PSC with their many reasons to deny the application. Climate change is causing extreme heat and storms that are devastating businesses, claiming lives and contributing to increased prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases, said Dr. Preeti Jaggi, chair of Georgia Clinicians for Climate Action.

“Carbon pollution is affecting both our health and our pocketbooks,” Jaggi said. “Georgia customers’ bills will likely go up for a storm made worse by climate change, which we are continuing to contribute to by locking in more coal and gas pollution.”

Others spoke to many experts’ warning of an economic bubble and lackluster advancements in artificial intelligence—the impetus for a data center boom nationwide, and thus Georgia Power’s planned tremendous energy expansion. Still others spoke to the timing of a lame-duck PSC rushing a vote on the Friday before Christmas without all of the pertinent information, despite having until March to rule on the application. And several opponents of Georgia Power and the PSC promised this battle was not over, but merely just beginning.