Georgia PSC Approves 3.2GW Power Deal Between Georgia Power and OpenAI for Effingham County Data Center

The Georgia Public Service Commission has approved a power supply contract between utility Georgia Power and OpenAI to serve the ChatGPT maker's planned data center in Effingham County, Georgia, marking a significant step in the region's efforts to accommodate the growing electricity demands of large-scale AI infrastructure.

Under the terms of the agreement, Georgia Power will develop 3.2GW of new generation capacity, with OpenAI committing to pay the full cost of the infrastructure required to serve the data center. The utility has not disclosed what type of generating capacity will be used. In addition, OpenAI said it will provide up to 1GW of flexible demand response. Georgia Power is expected to begin delivering energy to the facility between 2028 and 2032.

"Data centers are paying more so families and small businesses can pay less, and our goal with every contract we sign under this framework is to deliver value for them," said Kim Greene, chairman, president and CEO of Georgia Power. "Our customers depend on us for reliable and affordable energy every day, and that is the focus behind every decision we make."

The data center project, first revealed in July and dubbed Project Camelia, will be located within the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub, a 2,600-plus-acre area zoned for industrial use. The campus is expected to span four data center buildings with a total footprint of 4.4 million square feet (408,775 square meters). OpenAI is expected to invest more than $30 billion to develop the facility and has said the site will use a closed-loop water system for cooling and will not divert water from local communities.

Effingham County is located in southeastern Georgia near Savannah and is not currently home to any data centers, with most of the state's data center capacity concentrated in Atlanta and Augusta. The approval underscores a broader trend of utilities and regulators structuring large-load contracts so that hyperscale customers bear the infrastructure costs associated with their projects, shielding ordinary ratepayers from the expense of grid expansion. OpenAI has several data center projects across the US, many with partners such as Oracle, Crusoe, and Related Digital, with its flagship Stargate site already operating in Abilene, Texas, and others under development in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Texas.