The 2026 midterm elections could shake up the regulatory board that determines the rates Georgians pay for their power — and potentially rein in the state’s ability to further feed the data center boom.
Two seats on the five-member Georgia Public Service Commission are on the ballot Tuesday, and the outcome could put Democrats in the majority for the first time in decades.
The two Democratic candidates, Peter Hubbard and Sheila Edwards, have pledged to hold the state’s largest utility, Georgia Power, more accountable for how much customers pay for energy and promised to ensure that data centers’ costs aren’t passed on to residential bills.
Consumer advocates say the added scrutiny could better shield small businesses and household electricity payers from absorbing the costs of big power users. But it could also deter future data center development in Georgia, which houses more than 100 operational facilities, with another 100 in the pipeline that would require nearly 20 gigawatts of power.
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“Public service commissions are critical gatekeepers in this environment,” said John Boyd Jr., principal of corporate site selection firm The Boyd Co.
Data center and manufacturing companies could shift their development focus to other states if getting approval for power allocation in Georgia becomes more difficult, he said in an email.
The PSC is an elected board that oversees utilities in Georgia. It approves energy rates and infrastructure planning, including for natural gas, telecommunications and transportation providers. Neither the Georgia PSC nor Georgia Power directly decides on private development projects like data centers or manufacturing facilities, but they are instrumental in approving projects’ power needs.
Georgia Power spokesperson Meredith Stone said the company has had a productive relationship with the PSC throughout its history, regardless of the party in power. She added that the utility requires data center operators to pay for any additional power needs so the burden doesn’t fall on the average customer.
“We believe that we have a pretty positive story to tell in the protections we have in place for ratepayers,” she said.
A spokesperson for PSC declined to comment for this story.
Data centers have become one of the largest drivers of energy demand in Georgia. The state is expected to have about 60 large data centers operating by the end of the year, and about twice as many are planned for the years ahead, according to Axios. The state’s power capacity would need to increase by nearly 300% to meet the needs of the extra 119 planned data centers, Axios reported.
Last December, the commission approved a sweeping agreement allowing Georgia Power to expand the state’s energy grid by 10 gigawatts by 2030 to accommodate the influx of data centers.
Candidates Pledge Lower Bills
The two Democratic candidates have centered their campaigns on making lowering power bills a priority.
Hubbard, a clean energy advocate, is defending his District 3 seat against Republican Fitz Johnson, whom Hubbard unseated last year in a special election, putting a Democrat on the board for the first time since 2006.
Edwards, a business owner and communications consultant, is vying for the commission’s District 5 seat against Republican Josh Tolbert. If Edwards and Hubbard win, Democrats would control the five-member PSC board, joined by Alicia Johnson, who unseated Tim Echols in the special election last year.
Hubbard supports a fast transition to renewable energy and has said he wants to ensure data centers fully cover their own costs. Edwards has pledged in her campaign to stop Georgia Power from imposing more rate hikes and require data centers to “pay their fair share.”
Edwards has also said she supports a pause on data center development for at least one year while the state develops regulations to check their rampant growth, The Current reported.
Since 2022, the PSC has greenlit a series of electric-rate hikes that critics say have reached consumer bills, including adding $5.48 to the typical household power bill last year. The PSC in July 2025 approved a rate freeze until 2028 for residential customers to adjust to the recent hikes.
Some Georgians have expressed concerns that the electricity cost increases were implemented in part to accommodate data center demand.
“When you talk about energy affordability, that's on the minds of a lot of Georgians,” said Kimberly Scott, executive director of the Georgia WAND Education Fund, a nonprofit focused on environmental and social justice issues. “The fact that those rate increases are real and people are seeing their bills go up, and they're wondering why.”
Tolbert, the Republican running against Edwards, told Bisnow in an interview that he also supports more scrutiny over Georgia Power contracts.
Tolbert, founder of engineering consulting firm Atlanta Experts, opposed the power grid expansion that was approved in December. He said Georgia Power should phase in that expansion as it sells power instead of relying on growth projections that may not materialize.
Georgia Power says it has guardrails in place.
Stone said Georgia Power requires a “huge financial commitment upfront” from data center operators and developers for power to ensure the requests are valid and to protect consumers. She also said the utility puts early termination clauses in contracts that can last up to 30 years.
“We have the contracts in place structured where they are paying more. They’re paying their fair share and then some,” she said.
Economic Development Impact
Some economic development experts say that if Democrats take control of the PSC, data center companies may look to other states to develop projects where they would experience less pushback. Access to power has become the biggest factor in the U.S. in selecting sites to develop large commercial projects.
“It’s more risk and more uncertainty for corporate site selection projects,” Boyd said. “A new board could delay power contract approvals and spike industrial electricity rates by shifting grid costs onto corporations.”
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Clark Dean, a Republican candidate for Georgia governor earlier this year, told Bisnow that a Democrat-dominated PSC could hinder the state’s economic development momentum by pushing more utility costs onto companies and slowing down contracts for access to the power grid.
In fiscal year 2026, the state announced more than $35B in project investments and more than 25,000 new jobs as a result. Last week, President Donald Trump announced that automaker Audi was planning to develop a more than $4B plant in middle Georgia that will churn out 200,000 vehicles a year.
“In matters of energy policy, there tends to be a lot of political theater right now,” said Dean, who is also the executive managing director of brokerage firm Transwestern in Atlanta. “And in energy policy, political theater is good for politicians and bad for Georgians.”
The data center boom drew attention to the PSC race last year, an election that garners little voter notice in typical election cycles.
Attention to data center power consumption rippled into voter awareness of the PSC race last year and again this election, said Patty Durand, a utility consultant and founder of the advocacy group Georgians for Affordable Energy.
“If you can’t afford electricity, you can’t afford your quality of life. That’s the big thing,” Durand said.
Tolbert echoed that sentiment.
“I would argue no position, potentially outside of governor, impacts your daily life more than your decisions by the Public Service Commission,” Tolbert said. “We have an affordability problem in the state right now, and utility costs play a major role in that.”
The race for both seats is tight. A mid-August poll of 800 likely voters by public opinion research firm GBAO Strategies found that Hubbard and Edwards are “well-positioned” to win their races, according to the Georgia Conservation Voters Action Fund. After voters heard the candidates’ bios, Hubbard had a 51% to 42% lead over Johnson, and Edwards had a 51% to 42% lead over Tolbert.
Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs, said Hubbard and Edwards likely have the edge, since Democrats are more motivated to go to the polls than Republicans in this election, making the PSC race more of a barometer of party strength than the disapproval of electric-rate hikes that dominated the race in 2025.
“I think right now it’s a voter turnout game,” Dean said. “Most people have made up their minds. The question is, are they going to come? People are aligning with parties now.”
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