ATLANTA — Tuesday is Election Day and your vote could affect your power bill. That’s because two seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission are up for grabs.
It’s the first time in five years there has been an election for PSC seats, which have a statewide impact. Whenever Georgia Power asks to raise rates or build a new power plant, they need approval from the PSC.
LIVE Team 2 coverage of Election Day and updating results throughout the night, on Channel 2 Action News.
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It’s been the subject of ads and testimony.
Georgia right now is dealing with an unprecedented increase in energy demands — as data centers fuel AI — which may require the state’s energy production to nearly double in the next decade.
“The stakes have really never been higher. The public service commissioners are the ones who decide our energy future in Georgia,” said Jennifer Wakefield with Southern Environmental Law Center.
On Tuesday, voters will decide two races: Republican incumbent Fitz Johnson facing Democrat Peter Hubbard and Republican incumbent Tim Echols facing Democrat Alicia Johnson.
The focus is: how are you going to produce all that power?
"We believe in an all above approach. You know, we have our base load energy with our nuclear, our coal, and our natural gas," Fitzgerald said.
“We need to make the transition to clean energy, which will help to lower our power bills,” Hubbard said.
ELECTION DAY:
- Public Service Commission candidates discuss Georgia’s energy needs, costs
- Both sides testing strategies in Public Service Commission race
Then, there is the question who pays for it.
Republican incumbents Echols and Johnson say data centers will pay for the energy they use. But their Democratic opponents say the commission has failed to properly rein in power companies, leading to rate increases that have hit Georgians in the wallet.
"That’s one of the ways you could reduce bills is just cut the utility’s profits and cut the reserve margin. There are things that you could do that would greatly impact our reliability. You know, I’d rather have people fuss at me about the bills. Then fuss at me for the California-style rolling brownout," Echols said.
“It’s a scare tactic. Again, the Public Service Commission’s primary job is to regulate utilities,” Alicia Johnson said.
Georgia Power is asking the PSC for permission to spend more than $10 billion to add 10 gigawatts of power to the system. For perspective, that’s the equivalent of the power produced by nine Plant Vogtle nuclear reactors.
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