Power: How much, and who pays?

How big is 99 megawatts?

One megawatt is roughly enough power for about 800 average homes, running nonstop. That's based on the U.S. Energy Information Administration's numbers ↗ for how much power a home uses in a year. So 99 megawatts is in the range of tens of thousands of homes, for one building.

The builder's own concept plan ↗ says the building needs 40 to 90 megawatts. But in an email to the Development Authority of Bulloch County, the developer wrote:

"We have based these values and timetables on the 99 MW we have requested from Georgia Power."

(Email from Bobby Bagwell, May 7, 2026, received through an open records request. The 99 MW request was also reported at the August 18 council meeting: recording ↗, minutes ↗.)

Why 99, and not 100?

In 2025, Georgia's Public Service Commission (the PSC, the state board that watches over Georgia Power) drew a line ↗ at 100 megawatts.

At 100 or more, the big customer has to sign a real contract that the PSC reviews. It has to pay for the power lines and grid upgrades built just for it. And it has to promise to keep paying for up to 15 years, so it can't walk away and leave the bill on the rest of us.

Under 100, those automatic protections don't kick in. Georgia Power can still write unknown terms into a private contract. The PSC doesn't negotiate these deals, doesn't approve them, and can't tell the public what's in them. So no one at the state reviews them in any real sense.

And because the City and the public can't see the contract, we can't check whether it lines up with what our own ordinance ↗ promises, like "cost-stability" for the people already paying power bills. Things could be written in, or left out, on purpose or by accident, and the City would never know.

We asked the City for the Georgia Power letter. This is all it had.

The ordinance has one rule about electricity. It says "a letter of preliminary acceptance may be issued to allow for the study of a project."

On October 8, 2026, we asked the City for that letter, and for any letter from Georgia Power about serving this site or how much power it would get.

On October 12, the City's planning department sent back one page. It's the same letter the City gave us on September 1. In it, Georgia Power says it got the developer's intake form and that the project "has been accepted into our new project evaluation process." Read the letter (PDF, 1 page). (We blacked out a Georgia Power employee's cell phone number.)

That's a receipt for a form.

It has no date. It doesn't say how many megawatts. It doesn't say Georgia Power can serve the site, or who pays for the upgrades.

So here is what we know: the City's files hold no promise from Georgia Power to power this building.

The City told the developer to get that letter first.

Before a developer files, the City holds a "Right Start" meeting to go over what it will need. The City's notes from the one for this project, held June 11, 2026, list what the City told the developer it would need. One line reads:

"Electrical impact- a letter of preliminary acceptance before rezoning PC/CC meetings"

That reads as the Planning Commission and City Council, the two bodies that heard the rezoning. So the City's own staff wrote that the Georgia Power letter should come before those meetings. (Read the Right Start notes, 2 pages.)

The City sent us one Georgia Power paper, the undated intake form above. The checklist the developer filed with the Special Use Permit, Form 2.4.14, has 12 items, and none of them is electricity. (Read the checklist, 2 pages.)

What the PSC told us, in writing

On September 1, 2026, the PSC told us it had no filing, no case number, and no contract on record for this address. The only Georgia Power paperwork anyone has shown us is one short letter the City sent us twice.

On September 24 we asked the PSC to look at this 99 MW request, and to give projects under 100 megawatts the same protections. On September 29, the PSC's Electric Unit Director, Rob Trokey, wrote back:

"The Commission and Commission Staff are not involved in customer negotiations and only know details for contracts under 100 MW after execution, which are subject to trade secret disclosure requirements."

So for a deal like this one, the state finds out after it's signed, and the details can stay secret.

He also told us our request "has been shared with Commissioners as input on suggested modifications to rules and regulations for large load customers." He told us the information "may be passed along to others."

The rate list the PSC sent us

A tariff is Georgia Power's official rate list. Mr. Trokey sent us the one for very big customers: Schedule "TOU-SC-16," Time of Use, Supplier Choice, in effect starting with June 2026 bills. Read the tariff (PDF, 3 pages).

Two doors in. The tariff covers (1) new customers who get to pick their power company under Georgia's 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act, or (2) any customer that needs 100 megawatts or more. Under that 1973 law ↗, new customers with 900 kilowatts or more get to choose. 99 megawatts is about 110 times bigger than that. So a project under 100 MW can still use this rate list through the first door.

What the rate list actually says:

• The busy-hours price is on the page: 16.88 cents per kilowatt-hour. But busy hours are only 2 to 7 PM on weekdays, June through September.
• Every other hour of the year, the price is "Customer Specific." Georgia Power works it out itself, "based on the cost to serve the customer's load and location." That covers nights, weekends, and eight months of the year. That number isn't on any public list.
• The tariff says big customers "will be responsible to the Company for any additional cost associated with providing service not recovered through this tariff." That sounds good. But how much, and for how long, lives in a private contract.
• The contract "will specify the amounts the customer must pay in the event of termination." So the walk-away terms are in the private contract too.
• The standard contract is three years, unless the private contract says something else.

So the rules exist, but the numbers that matter are secret. The public can't check whether this deal protects the rest of us, and the City can't either unless it asks to see it.

What Statesboro's own rules promise

The City's data center ordinance (Ordinance 2026-01 ↗) starts with a promise. It says the rules are meant to make sure:

"the extraordinary electrical and water demands of Data Centers do not compromise the reliability, capacity, or cost-stability of municipal and regional utility systems for existing residents and businesses."

But look at what the ordinance actually asks for:

• Gas: a "will serve letter" from the City's Director of Public Utilities.
• Water: a full water plan.
• Electricity: only that "a letter of preliminary acceptance may be issued to allow for the study of a project." No contract. No power number. No promise about who pays.

Why does the ordinance hold water and gas to tighter rules than power? Electricity is the biggest demand of all, and it only needs a letter "to allow for the study of a project." Was that intentional, at a company's request, or a mistake?

There's one more catch. The permit ends "12 months after cessation, as determined by the lack of use (i.e., utility consumption)." But the City doesn't sell this building its electricity. Georgia Power does. How will the City know if it shuts down?

If it shuts down, who checks?

The ordinance says the builder must turn in "a Decommissioning Plan or financial surety (bond or escrow)" to pay for tearing it down. A plan alone counts. The builder turned in a 2-page plan, written by its engineer, Thomas & Hutton, on July 1, 2026. Read the plan (PDF). Here's what it says:

• When it starts: "upon the permanent cessation of the data center use." It never says what "permanent" means.
• When the City hears about it: "within a reasonable period." No deadline.
• Money: no bond, no escrow, and no cost estimate.
• What gets removed: the cooling system, the electrical gear, batteries, generators and fuel tanks.
• What's missing from that list: the computer servers. The plan's own purpose line says "IT/Cooling systems," and the ordinance requires removing "all IT infrastructure," but the servers aren't on the removal list.
• What may stay: the building shell, the roads, the equipment pads, the storm drains and the fire systems.
• It's stamped "Confidential Draft Template."

Who's watching the power use? As far as the records show, no local agency. Georgia Power meters the electricity, not the City. The sealed cooling loop uses so little water that the City's water meter can't show a shutdown either. And the power contract itself is a trade secret.

What other big deals got

Under the 2025 rule, a much bigger Georgia Power deal for an OpenAI data center in Effingham County came with real promises. Georgia Power can't bill regular customers if that data center shuts down early (Georgia Watch ↗). A state senator has also pushed a bill to protect customers from rate hikes ↗. It has to tell regulators within 15 days if that happens. And it pledged to shave $15 a month off the average bill starting in 2029.

That $15 isn't a discount. It means future bills will be $15 lower than they would have been. They may still be higher than what you pay today. Consumer watchdogs say even these protections might not hold up. And since Burkhalter has no named operator, there's no way to know if its contract would include any of them.

Voters noticed. In November 2025, Georgia voters threw out two PSC commissioners, partly over rising power bills and worries about data centers (Bisnow ↗). One winner, Peter Hubbard, had said in June 2025: "You can drive a Mack truck through the loopholes." (The Current, June 13, 2025 ↗)