Big companies have spent years pushing Georgia to let them find and pay for new clean energy to add to the grid, in the hopes that they could then get data centers and other power-hungry facilities online faster.

Now, that concept is tantalizingly close to becoming a reality, with regulators, utility Georgia Power, and others hammering out the details of a program that could be finalized sometime next year. If approved, the framework could not only benefit companies but also reduce the need for a massive buildout of gas-fired plants that Georgia Power is planning to satiate the artificial intelligence boom.

Today, utilities are responsible for bringing the vast majority of new power projects online in the state. But over the past two years, the Clean Energy Buyers Association has negotiated to secure a commitment from Georgia Power that ​“will, for the first time, allow commercial and industrial customers to bring clean energy projects to the utility’s system,” said Katie Southworth, the deputy director for market and policy innovation in the South and Southeast at the trade group, which includes major hyperscalers like Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft.

The terms of the commitment were first sketched out in a letter agreement between Georgia Power and CEBA last year and then codified in a July settlement agreement between the utility, staff at the Georgia Public Service Commission, and other stakeholders that cemented the utility’s long-term integrated resource plan.

The ​“customer-identified resource” (CIR) option will allow hyperscalers and other big commercial and industrial customers to secure gigawatts of solar, batteries, and other energy resources on their own, not just through the utility.

Letting data centers procure their own energy resources could solve a lot of problems for utilities — like the risk of sticking their customers with the cost of building power plants that may be unneeded if the AI boom goes bust. That’s a real concern for Georgia Power, which plans to spend more than $15 billion to build 10 gigawatts of new gas plants and batteries by 2031. This move could dramatically increase customers’ bills and is almost entirely motivated by gigantic — yet highly uncertain — projections of how much energy that data centers will need.

The tech giants behind most of those data centers could also benefit from being able to track down their own clean energy. The carbon-free resources would not only help in meeting hyperscalers’ aggressive climate targets; they are also likely to be cheaper and faster to build than gas plants, which face yearslong backlogs and rising costs.

The CIR option isn’t a done deal yet. Once Georgia Power, the Public Service Commission, and others work out how the program will function, the utility will file a final version in a separate docket next year.

And the plan put forth by Georgia Power this summer lacks some key features that data center companies want. A big point of contention is that it doesn’t credit the solar and batteries that customers procure as a way to meet future peaks in power demand — the same peaks Georgia Power uses to justify its gas-plant buildout.

But as it stands, CEBA sees ​“the approved CIR framework as a meaningful step toward the ​‘bring-your-own clean energy’ model,” Southworth said — a model that goes by the catchy acronym BYONCE in clean-energy social media circles.

Opening up the playing field for clean energy

The CIR option is technically an addition to Georgia Power’s existing Clean and Renewable Energy Subscription (CARES) program, which requires the utility to secure up to 4 gigawatts of new renewable resources by 2035. CARES is a more standard ​“green tariff” program that leaves the utility in control of contracting for resources and making them available to customers under set terms, Southworth explained.

Under the CIR option, by contrast, large customers will be able to seek out their own projects directly with a developer and the utility. Georgia Power will analyze the projects and subject them to tests to establish whether they are cost-effective. Once projects are approved by Georgia Power, built, and online, customers can take credit for the power generated, both on their energy bills and in the form of renewable energy certificates. Georgia Power’s current plan allows the procurement of up to 3 gigawatts of customer-identified resources through 2035.

Letting big companies contract their own clean power is far from a new idea. Since 2014, corporate clean-energy procurements have surpassed 100 gigawatts in the United States, equal to 41% of all clean energy added to the nation’s grid over that time, according to CEBA. Tech giants have made up the lion’s share of that growth and have continued to add more capacity in 2025, despite the headwinds created by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.

But most of that investment has happened in parts of the country that operate under competitive energy markets, in which independent developers can build power plants and solar, wind, and battery farms. The Southeast lacks these markets, leaving large, vertically integrated utilities like Georgia Power in control of what gets built. Perhaps not coincidentally, Southeast utilities also have some of the country’s biggest gas-plant expansion plans.

A lot of clean energy projects could use a boost from power-hungry companies. According to the latest data from the Southern Energy Renewable Association trade group, more than 20 gigawatts of solar, battery, and hybrid solar-battery projects are now seeking grid interconnection in Georgia.

“The idea that a large customer can buy down the cost of a clean energy resource to make sure it’s brought onto the grid to benefit them and everybody else, because that’s of value to them — that’s theoretically a great concept,” said Jennifer Whitfield, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit that’s pushing Georgia regulators to find cleaner, lower-cost alternatives to Georgia Power’s proposed gas-plant expansion. ​“We’re very supportive of the process because it has the potential to be a great asset to everyone else on the grid.”

Isabella Ariza, staff attorney at the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, said CEBA deserves credit for working to secure this option for big customers in Georgia. In fact, she identified it as one of the rare bright spots offsetting a series of decisions from Georgia Power and the Public Service Commission that environmental and consumer advocates fear will raise energy costs and climate pollution.

“They’re proposing something that makes total sense and would help some companies be able to say ​‘We’re powering our stuff with 100% clean energy,’” Ariza said of the CIR option. That’s particularly important at a time when many hyperscalers are backing away from their clean energy targets in their hunt for power for AI data centers, she noted.

The missing piece: capacity value

Despite those benefits, the CIR framework’s omissions are substantial enough that CEBA did not join stakeholders like Walmart, the Georgia Association of Manufacturers, and the Southern Renewable Energy Association trade groups in signing on to it.

CEBA wanted companies to be able to procure a full range of carbon-free generation resources — such as geothermal and small modular nuclear reactors — rather than just renewable energy and renewables paired with batteries. The trade group also sought a pathway for customers to bring projects forward on a rolling basis more quickly than the current settlement agreement would allow.

But one of the biggest issues CEBA has with the current CIR plan is that it ​“does not recognize the full capacity value of customer-funded clean, firm resources to the grid,” Southworth said. Capacity value is a measure of how power plants, batteries, and other resources meet peak power demands during the handful of hours per year that determine how much generation and grid infrastructure utilities need to build.

That’s a significant gap. If the resources that big customers secure under the CIR aren’t considered part of the solution to this challenge — if their capacity value isn’t factored in — they may not be able to reduce Georgia Power’s need for gigawatts of gas-fired power plants, which are the traditional utility backstop for ensuring adequate energy supplies.

This would be bad for Georgia Power customers at large, who would end up paying for more gas plants than are actually needed after the data centers driving up power demand secure their own resources instead. It could also saddle data centers and other big customers with growing capacity-related costs that their self-secured projects could otherwise help reduce.

“A well-designed CIR program that recognizes the capacity value of customer-funded clean resources is a win-win-win for large customers, Georgia Power, and all ratepayers,” Southworth said. ​“Participating customers pay the incremental cost of new clean, firm projects; the utility gets capacity it can count on; and nonparticipating customers benefit from a more diverse, less gas-dependent resource mix without taking on the full cost or fuel price risk of those projects.”

CEBA has ideas for how Georgia Power could financially compensate customers for the capacity value of the resources that they procure. The utility already calculates ​“avoided capacity values” for the renewable energy, battery, and fossil-fueled resources it brings to the table in its requests for proposals. Georgia Power could provide a capacity credit of similar value to subscribing customers for the projects they procure.

CEBA will ​“continue to work with the company and commission staff,” Southworth said. Her group sees Georgia Power’s long-term plan approved this summer ​“as establishing the floor, not the ceiling, for what CIR can become.”

A big shift at the Public Service Commission could lay the groundwork for a reassessment of the program. Last month, Georgia voters elected two Democratic challengers — health care consultant Alicia Johnson and clean-energy advocate Peter Hubbard — to replace Republican incumbents Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson.

“Capacity is still an open question” that the Public Service Commission can take up as it decides on the CIR option, said Whitfield of the Southern Environmental Law Center. ​“Georgia Power is certainly on record that they don’t prefer it to be accredited, which makes sense for them. They want to build more and profit more,” as a regulated utility that earns guaranteed profits on its capital investments. ​“But that is going to be very much a live issue.”

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