(The Center Square) – A bill that would end tax breaks for data centers and keep ratepayers from footing the energy bills, made it through the Georgia Senate on Friday.
Senate Bill 410 would not allow new data centers to receive the two tax breaks, but would allow companies currently receiving them to continue receiving them until the tax cut expires.
Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, said the fiscal impact of the two tax credits on equipment needed for the data centers has increased based on new information from the Department of Revenue.
Speaking of tax credit impact, Hufstetler said, “These data centers when the last bill was around and the last bill was voted on, was about $100 million. Now it’s about $2.5 billion for these two credits. The money for the state portion that these data centers are getting is more than an entire month of the total income taxes that the state of Georgia collects. My preference would be that they don’t go until 2032.”
Only 30% of Georgia’s data center boom can be attributed to the 2018 tax break intended to support the industry, according to a December report from the State Department of Audits and Accounts.
The report, conducted by the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, contradicted the university’s 2022 study estimating 90% of Georgia’s data center activity was due to the tax break.
While the bill includes tax breaks, it uses different language regarding consumer protection than Senate Bill 34 proposed by Hufstetler. SB34 never made it to a floor vote. Sen. Matt Brass, R-Newnan, the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 410, said SB34 would have gotten into “rate making,” which is the responsibility of the Public Service Commission.
The revised bill requires contracts between data centers and utilities to include language that would “protect residential and retail electricity customers from costs associated with serving new large load customers.”
“So by addressing contracts, we also included the intent, to ensure ratepayers will not pay the tab, will not pay for the cost for upgrades in our infrastructure due to data centers,” Brass said.
Hufstetler said he would vote for the bill, but it doesn’t provide citizens with the protection they need.
“What it doesn’t answer is when a 14 gigawatts of power are built, and this guy uses 100 megawatts and this guy uses 500 megawatts and they add up to less than five gigawatts, then who pays for the other nine gigawatts?” Hufstetler said. “There is no protection for the consumers in that situation.”
The Georgia Public Service Commission unanimously greenlighted a plan from Georgia Power that allows the utility to add nearly 10,000 megawatts of power during its December 2025 meeting. The utility said it would ensure that $556 million in annual revenue from large load customers when the company makes its next rate case in 2028, and put downward pressure on rates.
Atlanta Democrat Elena Parent said the rule has “more holes than you could drive a truck through,” when speaking in opposition to the bill.
“This is embarrassing,” Parent said. “The public understands what’s going on here and we are giving them a middle finger.”
The bill passed by a vote of 32-21 with all Democrats voting against it. The House of Representatives passed a similar bill on Feb. 17.
