Georgia Power’s pipeline of large load economic development projects shrank a net 6 GW from the second quarter to the third quarter to 50.9 GW due to projects that exited, the utility said in a Friday filing with the Georgia Public Service Commission.
Around 6.8 GW of new large load projects entered the pipeline, and projects in the pipeline increased their projected load by a total of 1.6 GW, while 14.3 GW of projects exited, Georgia Power said.
Georgia Power’s pipeline of near-term large load projects slated for winter of 2028 and 2029 decreased this quarter by 1.4 GW, to a total of 24.4 GW, the report said.
“Although the total and large load economic development pipelines have shrunk, the number of commitments to Georgia Power for electric service from large load customers have grown from 26 to 28,” Georgia Power said in the report.
Those two new commitments together account for 2.2 GW and bring the utility’s total commitments to 11 GW, the report said, and since last quarter “an additional five customers have broken ground, reflecting an increase in the long-term load from 3,721 MW in Q2 2025 to 7,313 MW in Q3 2025.”
Of the 28 committed projects, 18 have broken ground and 10 are pending construction, which “indicates that these large load customers are materializing and making progress without material delays,” the report said.
Georgia Power said that in the near-term, “projects that have broken ground represent 6,175 MW of the total 7,800 MW of customer commitments for the winter of 2028/2029.” The utility could not be immediately reached for comment.
Testimony filed Nov. 12 on behalf of the commission’s public interest advocacy staff warned that Georgia Power’s residential customers could see their monthly bills increase if the utility completes its planned generation buildout to support new data centers.
“The majority of the new generation Georgia Power seeks to certify … is not backed by executed contracts under the new large load framework,” stated the testimony, given by PSC staff members and consulting analysts. “Only about 1,900 MW is supported by such contracts. The rest is speculative and exposes customers to the risk of stranded costs if the anticipated load does not materialize.”
The staff testimony noted that the data center segment is “primarily underperforming expectations due to a mixture of lower materialization rates, project cancellations, and delays.”
“Since the 2023 IRP Update, thirty-three data center projects with 11,332 MW of announced load have been removed from the pipeline, representing ~55% of all project removals, and ~65% of announced load removed,” the testimony stated. “24% of data center projects that entered the LRM have been removed with an average of five data center projects exiting the pipeline each quarter … It is unclear whether the Company’s model accounts for this level of project removal.”
