Georgia Power has been spending more money to explore potential sites for more nuclear plants, eyeing a previously targeted location in west-central Georgia, public documents show, but company officials remain firm the utility does not want to build another reactor — for now.
Having more nuclear power to electrify its grid has long been an option for Georgia Power, which remains the only electric utility in the United States to build two reactors from scratch in decades. That the company has upped its spending on studying future sites in recent months is notable, as it continues to heavily recruit energy-sucking data centers to the Peach State well into the next decade.
“The increase in (n)ew (n)uclear … is attributable to costs associated with site studies for land in Stewart County,” among other nuclear-related projects, the company said in a Sept. 10 filing.
In a separate document, Georgia Power said, “… the company continues to perform high-depth assessments of potential project sites, evaluate available and emerging technologies and engage with stakeholders in developing improved methods to potentially deploy new nuclear generation projects.”
The information is in response to a request for more information about its spending from technical staff at the Georgia Public Service Commission. The staff noted the largest increases in this particular spending category were for new power generation, fossil and nuclear categories.
The staff also wanted specific information about the preliminary work Georgia Power has done at the site in Stewart County. Much of the detailed information has been redacted.
Georgia Power has been spending an average of $87,000 a month for roughly 13 months “associated with siting studies for potential new nuclear generation,” according to a summary of the company’s 2024 annual Retail Surveillance Report, filed in November 2025.
Georgia Power declined to provide the siting studies to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
This isn’t the first time Stewart County has been part of a discussion about nuclear reactors. In 2016, Georgia Power included the site near Columbus as part of its 20 year, long-term energy plan, saying it wanted to spend customer money to see if it made sense to build reactors there.
After much debate over whether ratepayers or company shareholders should take on those costs, the company’s regulator, the Georgia Public Service Commission, ultimately said it could spend up to $99 million on exploring that site and bill customers for it.
Georgia Power scrapped those plans in March 2017, saying the demand for electricity wasn’t there.
The money Georgia Power has spent recently on potential nuclear sites has not been included in customer rates and would not be unless the company decides to go forward with building more reactors and asks the PSC to include those costs in customer bills, a company spokesperson said.
Georgia Power was the first to build more reactors, roughly 15 years ago.
But Jacob Hawkins, a company spokesperson, said in an email to the AJC, “We have no plans to pursue new nuclear at this time.”
Chris Womack, chairman, president and chief executive of Southern Co., Georgia Power’s parent, told Wall Street analysts the same in July.
“Southern’s not going to be next, let me be clear about that,” Womack said in response to an analyst’s question during Southern’s second-quarter earnings conference call.
Consumer and environmental advocates also softened the information in last week’s filing, saying Georgia Power already mentioned nuclear power as a future option in its long-term energy plan, known as an Integrated Resource Plan, in 2025.
What’s more, the company’s focus is an unprecedented expansion of its power grid by 2030, mostly to support data centers.
For new nuclear, Georgia Power would first have to secure financing, line up contractors, and obtain state and federal approvals before dirt could even be turned.
That process, plus construction, could take more than a decade. Indeed, the company told its regulator in 2004 it was exploring the idea of more nuclear power in what became the Vogtle project. The reactors were supposed to start producing electricity in 2016 and 2017 but were not finished until 2023 and 2024.
“The one thing you can’t do with nuclear is build it quickly,” said Liz Coyle, executive director of the consumer watchdog group Georgia Watch, later adding that pursuing new nuclear reactors now, “doesn’t jive with what they’ve got in the pipeline now with their projected growth that’s tied to data centers.”
Georgia Power’s next resource plan is due in early 2028. There may be more discussion of a nuclear project at that time if the company wants to eye having at least one reactor up and running after 2040.
“That’s why I would be surprised if they are, in 2026, moving into the pre-approval phase (for another nuclear project),” Coyle said.
Nuclear power is emission free, unlike fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gasses, a major contributor to climate change. The large reactors also can operate 24/7, unlike renewable fuels that must be paired with battery storage to do so.
The power sector is the second-largest contributor of carbon emissions. A recent, unprecedented report from the United Nations warned the world will surpass a limit for global temperature rise unless all countries take steps to zero out those emissions or face increased instances of extreme heat, cold, flooding and hurricanes.
The Trump administration is expected to announce Monday that the federal government will no longer limit power plant emissions, paving the way for older, dirtier coal and gas-fired power plants to keep running and for new ones to be built, according to media reports.
The move comes at a time when many electric companies, including Georgia Power, are turning to gas-fired power plants as the solution to rising electricity demand.
Nuclear power has two significant drawbacks — time and money — and those were prominently on display as Georgia Power embarked on adding two reactors at Plant Vogtle, south of Augusta.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The project cost customers, legacy corporations and the company dearly. The main contractor, Westinghouse Electric Co., went bankrupt when the costs began to escalate at Vogtle and a similar project in South Carolina, which ultimately failed. Westinghouse’s parent, Toshiba Corp., bailed out the 130-year-old iconic manufacturer and then put it up for sale.
Southern wrote off $3.26 billion in losses on Vogtle from 2018 to the beginning of 2023, and then ate an additional $2.63 billion once the reactors were finished. But it was Georgia Power’s customers who bore the brunt of the costs, eventually paying $7.56 billion through a cumulative 10% increase on monthly bills.
That amount was on top of $4.1 billion they already were paying in financing costs after the state Legislature passed a law in 2009 allowing Georgia Power to collect that money in advance.
In its July earnings call, Southern’s CEO said the U.S. needs more nuclear power, particularly by the middle of the next decade, to support electricity demand. The federal government has and must continue to step up, however, Womack said.
“We’re going to continue to work constructively and very, I would say, pretty aggressive with this administration and with a lot of other parties to see how we can get this done, because I do think it’s important from an energy policy standpoint, from the economy, to meet this moment and meet this demand that we see in the marketplace today,” he said.
The AJC’s Drew Kann contributed to this article.
A note of disclosure
This coverage is supported by a partnership with Green South Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners. You can learn more and support our climate reporting by donating at AJC.com/donate/climate.
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