Georgia Power says the rapid expansion of data centers could ultimately lower electricity costs for residential customers, offering a case study in President Donald Trump’s push to make large technology companies cover the energy infrastructure required by their artificial intelligence operations.
The utility projects that a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month could see the equivalent of at least $180 in annual savings beginning in 2029 as revenue from large electricity users flows into the system. Georgia Power estimates those customers could generate roughly $950 million in annual savings across its customer base, or about $2.85 billion from 2029 through 2031.
The savings are projections rather than guaranteed reductions in customers’ current bills. Georgia Power has described the benefit as downward pressure on future rates as large users help spread the utility’s fixed costs across a broader customer base.
The issue has become increasingly prominent as AI companies construct data centers that require enormous amounts of electricity for computing and cooling.
Trump announced a Ratepayer Protection Pledge in March aimed at preventing those projects from shifting their infrastructure costs onto households. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI were among the companies that initially signed the pledge, agreeing to build, purchase or otherwise secure additional power and cover infrastructure upgrades required for their facilities.
Georgia has separately adopted rules governing extremely large electricity customers.
Under Georgia Public Service Commission requirements, new customers requiring at least 100 megawatts can be required to pay infrastructure costs associated with serving their facilities and enter long-term agreements with minimum monthly payments, collateral requirements and termination charges.
One of the largest projects operating under that framework is OpenAI’s planned data center campus in Effingham County.
Georgia Power said the project will require approximately 3,200 megawatts of electricity. Under its agreement with the utility, OpenAI is expected to cover the infrastructure costs required to serve the project and provide up to 1,000 megawatts of flexible demand response, allowing Georgia Power to reduce power supplied to the facility during periods of unusually high system demand.
Georgia Power said the arrangement could reduce the need for additional generating capacity and contribute to the projected savings.
The utility has also frozen base electricity rates through at least the end of 2028. A separate plan approved by state regulators in May reduced overall rates by an estimated $50 annually for a typical residential customer, though that reduction involved fuel and storm-recovery costs rather than the new OpenAI contract.
The projections have not ended concerns about the data center boom.
Consumer and environmental groups have questioned whether rapid electricity-demand growth could eventually expose ordinary customers to additional costs, per the Conservative Brief.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that advocates welcomed some of the protections in the OpenAI agreement but cautioned that future expenses could still emerge as Georgia Power expands its grid,
Residents also raised questions about power prices and transparency surrounding the OpenAI project during a recent PSC meeting in Savannah.
Georgia Power and state regulators maintain that their framework is specifically designed to prevent those costs from being transferred to residential customers and small businesses.
The Georgia projections provide an early test of a broader policy question facing the country: whether the enormous electricity demand created by AI data centers will raise household utility bills or, under certain rate structures, allow large technology customers to absorb infrastructure costs while contributing additional revenue to the power grid.
