In a Manner Designed to Protect Existing Customers: The Georgia Commission's Order on One Utility's Rules for Large New Customers

The Georgia Public Service Commission approved, in an order in Docket No. 44280, revisions to one utility's Rules and Regulations for large new customers. The order says it was approved "by action of the Commission at its Administrative Session on the 23rd day of January 2025." The utility filed its request on December 11, 2024. It "cited its unprecedented anticipated load growth and the need to protect customers in the event large projects do not materialize as the rationale behind this request." Parts of the order follow, not the whole. The utility's filing and the Rules and Regulations themselves are not reported here.

Minimum Bills and Longer Terms

The rule changes apply to new customers with 100 MW or more of load connecting to the utility's system, "requiring additional terms and conditions for those customers in order to allow the Company to appropriately assign costs to the customer." The revisions "allow for minimum billing requirements and longer contract term lengths for the new customers over 100 MW of load." They are in Section A of the utility's Rules and Regulations, its general rules, and in Section D, on transmission or wholesale distribution line extension and service connection. The order gives no figure for the minimum billing requirements and no length for the contract terms.

A minimum bill and a longer term are how a utility makes a large customer carry the cost of serving it. Without the figures, a developer cannot tell from this order how heavy either will be.

The Staff's Conditions

The commission's staff "recommended approval with the below modifications," and at its January 23, 2025 Administrative Session the commission "voted unanimously to approve Staff's recommendation." The order approves the revisions "as requested by" the utility "in its December 11, 2024 filing, as modified by Staff."

The utility "shall exercise the discretion under the Rules and Regulations changes in a manner designed to protect existing customers from bearing any of the costs of adding these large customers." Before it uses the terms and conditions intended to implement the revisions for contracting, it shall provide them to the staff, with the criteria for applying them. It "shall file the complete contract and associated exhibits, attachments, terms and conditions on all new contracts within 30 days of execution," and it shall make a compliance filing of the relevant tariffs for applicable customers.

Review, and Jurisdiction Retained

"The Commission shall continue to review the issue and may modify the rules and regulations or take other actions necessary to protect the Company's customers," one of its paragraphs says. Jurisdiction over these matters "is expressly retained for the purpose of entering such further order or orders as this Commission may deem just and proper." In its recommendation, the staff also "reserves the right to recommend further amendments to the Company's rules and regulations."

A contract signed under these rules is signed under rules the commission has said it may still modify.