Graded Light and tightening. 17 laws, orders, rulings and local actions, each with its source, reviewed 23 October 2026.
The Jan 2025 PSC rule makes Georgia Power file every 100 MW contract for staff review before signing; 9,885 MW of new generation was certified 19 Dec 2025.
The Jan 2025 large-load rule sets risk-based billing and prepaid T&D above 100 MW; the Aug 2026 OpenAI order keeps termination shortfalls off other customers.
DeKalb's pause to 30 March 2027 and Paulding's to 1 Jan 2027 hit the Atlanta market, with Coweta, Savannah and Camden also paused; Fulton stays open.
The sales tax exemption survives intact with its investment and jobs thresholds after SB 410 was dropped from HB 463 on 3 April 2026 and the 2024 veto.
No water, air or disclosure law passed; the only in-force disclosure is the Aug 2026 OpenAI order making Georgia Power publish contract summaries and reports.
Scored on rules in force, 1 to 5. 5 is the most regulated. Pending rules set the arrow.
Georgia still offers its data center sales tax exemption: the governor vetoed a pause in 2024 and every 2026 bill to repeal it, protect ratepayers, require disclosure or impose a statewide moratorium died. The real controls come from the Public Service Commission, which since 2025 has required risk-based billing and staff review of every Georgia Power contract above 100 MW, and in August 2026 cleared a 3,200 MW OpenAI contract with added ratepayer conditions. The commission also certified about 9,900 MW of new generation for Georgia Power in December 2025 and froze base rates until 2028. Counties around Atlanta have used temporary moratoria and new ordinances, and the commission is now deciding whether a third party may power a data center on site.
Two of five commission seats are on the 3 November 2026 ballot: Peter Hubbard defends District 3 against Fitz Johnson and District 5 is open, with a 1 December runoff possible, and a Democratic sweep would give the party a 3 to 2 majority, its first in about thirty years. The commission has still to set hearings on the VoltaGrid on-site power case it agreed on 18 August 2026 to hear, and the House says it will keep working on the HB 1063 contract bill before the 2027 session. Local pauses come up for decision in sequence: Camden County's six-month moratorium expires around November 2026, Coweta County's runs to 23 December 2026, Paulding County's to 1 January 2027, Savannah's 155-day pause to late January 2027 and DeKalb County's to 30 March 2027, where Shadowbox Studios' suit to void the moratorium, filed 5 August 2026, is pending.
No statewide moratorium, but 5 local pauses are in force as of 23 October 2026, in Camden County, Coweta County, DeKalb County, Paulding County, Savannah. Proposals and expired pauses are not counted.
Tightening. Georgia is graded Light, which means incentives in place and few new obligations. Tax break intact; regulators and counties, not lawmakers, set the limits. The outlook above says what is pending.
Georgia sits in TVA and Southeast utilities. The grid operator decides how a new large load is studied, what it must bring or pay, and whether it can be curtailed first; the state decides siting, permits, tariffs and incentives.
No. Georgia's data center incentives were not pulled back in 2025 or 2026 as of 23 October 2026.
On Genloop's five-line rubric (1 least regulated, 5 most) Georgia scores grid connection 2, power rates 3, siting and land use 3, tax treatment 2, permits and water 2, a mean of 2.4. The most regulated line is siting and land use: DeKalb's pause to 30 March 2027 and Paulding's to 1 Jan 2027 hit the Atlanta market, with Coweta, Savannah and Camden also paused; Fulton stays open.
17 items: each is a law, order, tariff, ruling, utility action or local decision that changes what a data center must do, pay or disclose, or where it may be built. Failed and pending measures are marked. Each links to its source.
In late August 2026 commission staff cleared Georgia Power's contract for OpenAI's Effingham County campus, the seventh approved under the large-load rule. Georgia Power agreed not to recover early-termination shortfalls from other customers, to report cancellations within 15 days, to publish contract summaries and twice-yearly data center reports, and to raise its promised 2029 to 2031 bill relief from $8.50 to $15 a month.
Source: ajc.comOn 27 August 2026 the City Council approved a 155-day pause on data centers drawing 10 MW or more and on industrial buildings of 200,000 square feet or more built or converted for data center use, running to late January 2027, while staff draft regulations on noise, water, neighborhoods and grid strain. The vote followed data center plans in neighboring Effingham County.
Source: wtoc.comOn 18 August 2026 the commission voted unanimously to hold hearings on whether VoltaGrid may run 33 gas engines to supply an adjacent Serverfarm data center inside Georgia Power's territory. Petitioners cite the Territorial Electric Service Act and the cogeneration law; state environmental officials had already ordered construction stopped in July for lack of a permit.
Source: ajc.comShadowbox Studios and Henrico 183 filed suit in DeKalb County Superior Court on 5 August 2026 asking a judge to declare the county's data center moratorium invalid and let them build on a nearly 200-acre site at 3600 International Park Drive, and seeking compensation for an alleged $200 million loss in value. The case is pending.
Source: atlantanewsfirst.comDeKalb County commissioners first paused new data center development in July 2025 and have extended the pause four times, most recently in July 2026 by a 6 to 1 vote to 30 March 2027. It covers new data centers and expansions in unincorporated DeKalb while the county writes rules; a draft zoning package was rejected unanimously on 23 June 2026. Shadowbox Studios and Henrico 183 sued the county in DeKalb Superior Court on 5 August 2026 to have the moratorium declared invalid, claiming a $200 million loss in property value.
Source: atlantanewsfirst.comCommissioners voted unanimously in late July 2026 to stop accepting new data center proposals until 1 January 2027 while the county collects public input and reviews development standards. Applications filed before the vote are not affected.
Source: spectrumlocalnews.comCommissioners unanimously approved a new 180-day moratorium on data center applications, running to 23 December unless the county amends its data center ordinance sooner. Five proposals already filed keep their vested rights; commissioners have discussed a cap on the number of data centers and rules for on-site generation.
Source: times-herald.comCamden County imposed a six-month data center moratorium in May 2026, which runs to about November 2026. Commissioners held an ordinance workshop in late September to draft rules for when it expires, and a planned Southeast Georgia Innovation Campus near Kingsland may be anchored by a data center.
Source: actionnewsjax.comThe Senate backed SB 410 to wind down the data center sales tax exemption, but the House left it out of the list of tax breaks repealed in HB 463, the income tax bill that passed on 3 April 2026. A state audit published in December 2025 put the forgone sales tax at about $474 million in 2025; a state report cited by the AJC projects about $2.5 billion in 2026.
Source: news.bloomberglaw.comSB 34 would have barred Georgia Power from charging residential customers for the cost of serving data centers; it was rewritten in committee and never got a Senate floor vote. HB 1063, setting requirements for utility contracts with data centers, passed the House but not the Senate, and the Speaker said work would continue before 2027.
Source: ajc.comHB 1012 would have paused data center construction statewide until February 2027 and HB 528 would have required annual public energy and water reports from sites of 30 MW or more. SB 408 would have ended the tax exemption in 2027. None was among the measures reported as passed when the session ended in April 2026.
Source: route-fifty.comOn 19 December 2025 the commission voted 5 to 0 to certify 9,885 MW of new gas, battery and solar capacity costing at least $16 billion, about 60% of it gas. Georgia Power carries the risk if data center demand falls short, but only until 2031, and must design its 2028 rate filing to put downward pressure on residential bills.
Source: ajc.comOn 4 November 2025 Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard defeated Republican incumbents Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson, leaving a 3 to 2 Republican majority from January 2026. Two seats are on the 3 November 2026 ballot: Hubbard defends District 3 against Fitz Johnson, and District 5 is open because Tricia Pridemore ran for the U.S. House instead; Shelia Edwards (D), Josh Tolbert (R) and Thomas Blooming (L) are running, with a 1 December runoff if no one wins a majority. A Democratic sweep would give the party a 3 to 2 majority.
Source: news.ballotpedia.orgTroup County stopped accepting data center applications in unincorporated areas for 90 days from 16 September 2025 while it rewrote its development ordinance, after a $9.7 billion, roughly 600 MW campus was proposed near LaGrange. Douglas County adopted a 90-day pause in the same period.
Source: fox5atlanta.comIn summer 2025 the commission approved Georgia Power's agreement to hold base rates steady for three more years, with the next rate changes taking effect after a 2028 filing. Georgia Power says data center revenue will soften that adjustment.
Source: ajc.comThe commission unanimously approved rules in January 2025 for new Georgia Power customers above 100 MW: billing that reflects the risk of the project, payment of transmission and distribution costs as construction proceeds, and filing of each contract with the commission for staff review before signing.
Source: datacenterdynamics.comIn 2024 the General Assembly passed a bill to pause new data center sales tax exemptions and Governor Brian Kemp vetoed it, keeping the incentive in place.
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