Georgia residents are angry at the state’s unchecked data center boom and rising electric bills — and they voted accordingly in last week’s election.

Democrats won every statewide race in Georgia, including two seats on the Public Service Commission. Republicans had held a majority at the powerful utility regulator for 30 years. 

The winning candidates, Commissioner-elect Shelia Edwards and reelected Commissioner Peter Hubbard, have made clear that their top priority is to rein in rising electricity bills from Georgia Power, the state’s biggest utility. That likely means the new Democratic majority will challenge Georgia Power’s plans to enact one of the largest fossil-fuel expansions in the nation. 

In December 2025, the Republican-led PSC approved Georgia Power’s plan to build nearly 10 gigawatts of new gas-fired power plants and batteries to serve proposed data centers. It did so despite recommendations from commission staff to approve only about one-third of that capacity right away, given the speculative nature of the data center growth projections that the utility used to justify its buildout. 

All three Democrats on the five-member commission have signaled opposition to those plans. The two Democrats already on the commission, Hubbard and Alicia Johnson, tried earlier this year to get the PSC to reconsider the planned gas buildout but were thwarted by the GOP majority. 

The five new gas-burning plants planned as part of that buildout could cost customers an estimated $ 50 billion to $ 60 billion over their multi-decade lifespan and lock in significant amounts of new greenhouse gas emissions, according to estimates from the Southern Environmental Law Center.

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