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After six bill increases in the last three years, Georgia Power rates will now stay the same for the time being.
Under a deal approved Tuesday by the Georgia Public Service Commission, Georgia Power’s rates will stay the same for the next three years, though the deal does not include some costs, which could still cause bills to increase next year.
“The rate freeze resulting from this plan is a great result for customers,” Georgia Power CEO Kim Greene said in a statement, “balancing the mutual benefits of extraordinary economic growth among all stakeholders and helping to ensure that we remain equipped to continue supporting growth in this state.”
Under the agreement reached by Georgia Power and the commission’s staff and later cosigned by the Georgia Association of Manufacturers and Utility Management Services, the base rates that help determine power bills will remain the same for three years — except for the cost of recovering from Hurricane Helene, the most damaging storm in Georgia Power’s history.
Georgia Power is also scheduled to review the cost of fuels such as coal and natural gas next year, which could also drive bills up — though company officials said lower fuel prices could lead to lower bills, or at least cancel out extra costs from Helene.
“Customers have seen unprecedented inflation in the energy sector across the U.S.,” said commission chair Jason Shaw in a statement. “My fellow Commissioners and I urged staff and Georgia Power to come to some agreement where base rates would not increase. This is nothing but good news for Georgia Power ratepayers.”
Some critics were less certain. The rate freeze deal bypasses the typically intensive, monthslong process of setting rates, during which interested parties — including energy and consumer advocates, municipalities, large power users like MARTA and Walmart and even the federal government — comb through Georgia Power’s finances and proposals. Without those hearings, some have argued, it’s impossible to know if the rate freeze is the best possible deal for customers.
“Every day Georgians cannot be on the hook for Georgia Power’s data center spending spree,” said Bob Sherrier, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, in a statement. “The next three years are very consequential for the electric grid and deserve much more scrutiny than occurred here.”
Critics of the deal also worried that “rate freeze” is a misnomer because of the adjustment for storm costs that will happen next year. Others raised concerns that by deferring costs to keep rates the same now, the plan will result in an even larger rate hike in 2028.
Georgia Power officials denied both concerns in hearings last week. They argued that lower fuel costs could balance out the storm costs, leaving rates the same or even lower, and that savings from cost deferrals would extend beyond the next three years.
Commissioner Bubba McDonald objected to the current power rates — the rates now being extended — when they were approved in 2022 because he felt Georgia Power’s profits were set too high. He reiterated that objection Tuesday and proposed a motion to lower the utility’s profit cap, but no other commissioners seconded the proposal and it died without a vote.
In the end, McDonald joined his fellow commissioners in voting for the rate freeze, and it passed unanimously.
