Georgia Power announced Wednesday that it has reached a 25-year agreement to provide electric service for OpenAI’s planned artificial intelligence data center campus in Effingham County, a project expected to represent one of the largest private investments in Georgia’s history.
The agreement will support OpenAI’s “Project Camellia,” a proposed 1,400-acre data center campus in the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub. Under the plan, Georgia Power will deliver up to 3.2 gigawatts of electricity to the site in phases between 2028 and 2032, making it one of the largest AI computing facilities ever announced in the United States.
According to both Georgia Power and Open AI, Georgians won’t be on the hook to subsidize development of the project. Georgia Power said OpenAI will pay the full cost of the electric infrastructure and service needed for the project, a point both companies are emphasizing in press releases about the project. The pledge by OpenAI, they say, is an effort to quell the concerns of the public about rising electricity costs for residential customers sharing infrastructure with data centers.
The pledge, however, is not initiated by OpenAI. In January 2025, the Georgia Public Service Commission updated rules and regulations and the infrastructure costs were saddled to the company, not the other users.
Other parts of the agreement include:
- OpenAI’s pledge to make up to 1,000 megawatts of its power demand flexible during periods of peak electricity usage.
- The argument is that it will keep from straining the electric grid, which will result in reliability for Georgia Power customers
- “This demand response resource will also allow the company to invest in fewer new generation resources to serve future growth, providing savings for customers in the long term. Georgia Power’s load flexibility agreement with OpenAI is among the largest single-facility demand response commitments in the country,” the press release said.
