Two of today’s elections flying under the radar are Georgia’s Public Service Commission (PSC) races.
Due to a lawsuit, GA unexpectedly had 2 state-wide races dumped on this year’s ballot. (Normally we only have municipal elections in this off-off year.)
The PSC approves electric rates and energy generation plans for Georgia Power, our state’s regulated monopoly. “Regulated” is an ironic word at best. What Georgia currently has is 5 republicans rubber-stamping whatever rate increased Georgia Power wants. In fact, they raised our bills 6 times in the past 2 years.
Electric bills were INSANE this summer. My bill was higher than typical car payment and I live in a relatively small home under a huge shady oak tree.
This election will determine if Georgia continues to build coal and gas fired plants, or if energy generation will be shifted to cheap and clean renewable power along with smart increases in grid efficiency using battery storage and virtual power plants.
Georgia Power just requested permission to add 10 GW of coal and gas fired power plants to deal with the “predicted” future surge in data centers. Data centers are flooding the state because they get huge tax breaks, and they get an 80% discount from what residential customers pay for electricity. Our grid is overbuilt with under 50% usage, so we have plenty of room as-is.
10 GW is nuts. That would be increasing GA’s entire grid by 60%. And Georgia Power wants to do it primarily through gas turbines using expensive natural gas since Southern Company owns the gas company and the gas pipelines. Georgia is a top 10 sunny state and we produce solar panels, batteries and electric cars here, but Georgia Power can’t make as much collecting rays as they can burning dinosaur farts.
Today’s election is also Democrats’ best opportunity to flip two state-wide seats in 20 years. Yes, we won three Federal seats recently (Sen Ossoff, Sen Warnock and Biden) but in the 2021 runoff that elected Ossoff and Warnock, a 3rd runoff election was on the same ballot for GA PSC. We lost that one.
With only municipal elections on the ballot (which favors Democrats) and the INSANE electric bills this summer, people are fired up. Over 600k people early voted, when 4 years ago the total turnout was in the 500k range. Early indications are that Democrats outnumber republicans in the early turnout.
If you’re a Georgia Resident PLEASE GO VOTE TODAY before 7 PM. You can find your polling location here: mvp.sos.ga.gov/
Democrats Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson are running to flip the two commission seats. A 3rd seat and full control of the commission will be on the ballot in 2026.
Peter Hubbard is an energy industry expert and solar field developer. He would be the only one on the commission with any industry experience in recent memory.
Alicia Johnson is a community organizer and advocate.
Both would actually represent Georgia residents instead of corporate interests.
The only thing that sucks is if Peter wins, he would be completing the final year of a 6-year term. That means he basically has to go straight into re-election mode. If Alicia wins, she gets a full 6-year term.
Here’s Peter’s Actblue page. I doubt he needs any more funding today, but if he wins he’s going to need big bucks to run in 2026.
GA RESIDENTS PLEASE GO VOTE TODAY. Both seats are state-wide seats and will be on your ballot.
(Winning this election will be a great start to 2026 when Senator Ossoff will be on the ballot, along with all of our state level seats, including the wide open Governor’s race.)
