A public utility company in Georgia is proposing a transmission project that can potentially displace hundreds of property owners as it looks to expand its energy capabilities to power new AI data center projects.
Georgia Power is rolling out a grid expansion plan that includes building more than 1,000 miles of transmission lines—spanning over 330 parcels of land, including through residential property—and adding about 10 gigawatts of new generating capacity over the next five years. Building those lines, however, would mean levelling nearly 30 residential properties.
“My childhood home is being taken by Georgia Power,” said Ansley Brown, a Georgian whose house is affected, in a post on Instagram. “They are going to bulldoze this entire property to the ground.”
The construction plan
Some residents are faced with selling their homes or having them taken through eminent domain, as Georgia Power begins work on one of five current projects to expand its energy capabilities.
Last year, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved Georgia Power’s 2025 Integrated Resource Plan, which detailed the projected energy needs of customers and the state’s expected continued power necessities due to AI investment.
“The 10-year plan includes new transmission resources across more than 1,000 miles of transmission lines,” the filing read. “Additionally, the Georgia PSC approved a formal process to evaluate new grid enhancing technologies to help meet increasing grid capacity needs.”
Georgia Power is now reaching out to affected residents who live along a 35-mile stretch between Fayette, Heard, Fulton, and Coweta Counties as it looks to build a transmission line between its Ashley Park Substation and its plant in Wansley. The proposal, dubbed the Ashley Park-Wansley Transmission Project, will be used to “serve the broader needs of the communities and customers who rely on critical and reliable service infrastructure,” a Georgia Power spokesperson told Fortune.
But some residents are saying it’s just another negative consequence of the data center boom.
Brown, a daughter of a Georgian property owner who is faced with selling their home, took to social media amidst the negotiations. Fortune reached out to accounts claiming to be Brown on every platform where she posted, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
“We don’t have a choice in this. They are going to be expanding power lines,” she said in one video. “Why? For the data centers.”
In her most recent post on Instagram, Brown said District Representative Brian Jack scheduled a meeting with Georgia Power stakeholders and “fought for a resolution.”
A spokeswoman for Congressman Brian Jack told Fortune, “Congressman Jack has received multiple requests for help and support from constituents concerning Georgia Power activity in the district and he has worked diligently to address each with the stakeholders involved.”
A Georgia Power spokesperson told Fortune that negotiations with Ansley Brown’s family have been concluded, though the specific agreement was not disclosed. Fortune has not yet received a response regarding the agreement from Brown or her family. “We’re pleased to have reached an agreement with Ansley’s mother and bring this matter to a successful resolution,” a representative from Georgia Power told Fortune in a statement. “We appreciate Representative Jack’s interest in this issue and his advocacy on behalf of his constituent. We have remained in communication with his office throughout this process and are pleased to have reached a positive outcome.”
Georgia Power states that both land acquisition and easement negotiations are “close” to completion, with the project slated to begin construction as early as next year.
For its part, Georgia Power denies the description of the transmission line as a data center-focused construction project, with a spokesperson stating the utility is “not in the data center business.”
However, reports from CBS estimate data centers will be the largest user of this particular line, with 70-80% of the power from the project being diverted to AI data centers. In a statement to Fortune, a Georgia Power representative was unable to confirm the accuracy of these reports.
Despite this, the PSC and Georgia Power came to an agreement in Dec. 2025, certifying the construction of a nearly 10,000 megawatt energy generation plan that the agreement reads, “approximately 80 percent of which is expected to power data centers.”
The transmission route
Georgia Power said it follows a multi-step evaluation process to review potential routes for transmission lines, which includes processing existing land uses and community considerations.
According to the company, the potential route may involve tradeoffs which can include property acquisition. Homeowners caught in the proposed transmission route may need to choose between a full sale of their property, or allow the company a “right-of-way” or easement.
“When we go into situations like this, we start at 125% of the appraised value, and that’s just a starting point,” Meredith Stone, Media Relations Manager at Georgia Power, told Fortune. “From there, we go into negotiations, and it will take as long as it takes for the landowner to feel comfortable with the transaction.”
While uncommon, the company can also attempt to acquire the land through eminent domain. Eminent domain allows certain private property to be seized for public use and is governed by the Fifth Amendment in the US Constitution. Georgia Power reports that eminent domain is used as a last resort and occurs in less than 1% of its land transactions. According to the company, the process had only been used five times in the past year, with none being on residential homes.
While Georgia Power says acquisition through eminent domain is rare, attorneys who represent landowners say homeowners should understand that an easement agreement also carries long-term implications.
David Needham, a Georgia attorney who has spent more than a decade representing property owners in eminent domain cases, said permanent utility easements function like contracts that remain attached to the property even after it is sold. And those agreements can extend beyond the transmission towers themselves, Needham said, giving examples of permanent easements he’s seen that can prohibit owners from building permanent structures beneath the lines. Other easements may reserve broad rights for utilities, including installing additional infrastructure.
“It’s a contract that’s very much tilted in favor of the power company,” Needham said. “But there is compensation offered.”
“It blurs the lines between a public good,” Needham said.
Georgia’s data center investment
Georgia Power posits the collective 1,000 miles of transmission lines from all five projects will provide long-term savings for their customers, projecting nearly $102 in savings per residential customer per year, expected to begin in 2029. The company says the savings will come from their large-load customers paying more, reducing the overall cost that gets passed down on to its residential and small commercial customers.
“We are in the service of providing energy to a growing Georgia, and the way that we’re doing that is very different from any other utility in the country,” Stone said. “We’re requiring our large-load customers to pay more, so we can use those funds to put downward pressure on the rates for our residential customers.”
The utility said the data center investment will enhance Georgia’s electrical grid through requiring area system upgrades that will benefit the entire region—and that the presence of data centers will not impact customer experience or increase risk of blackout. The company also did not disclose the companies behind these data centers
Georgia has become a hub of AI investment, with multiple tax incentives in the state making it ideal for data center development. The state currently provides exemptions administered through the State of Georgia Department of Revenue, covering a wide range of equipment and infrastructure on AI development. Data centers intending to utilize these incentives must make a minimum investment of $100 to $250 million, and the exemption will waive 100% of both state and local sales and use taxes on equipment purchases.
Due to the ideal conditions to build data center investment in the state, over 200 data centers are operational with nearly 170 in Atlanta. The developments include many tech giant-owned centers such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
However, Georgian lawmakers in recent years have shifted from opening data centers with open arms to attempting to take a step back. The sales and use tax exemption in Georgia dates back to 2018, but lawmakers voted to suspend any new exemptions in 2024. The vote was vetoed by Georgia Governor Kemp, but it illustrates the change in direction Georgia’s public servants felt on the developments.
A tax incentive evaluation from Dec. 2025 prepared by The University of Georgia Carl Vinson Institute of Government projected that the net fiscal impact of Georgia’s data center sales and use tax exemption would leave the state nearly -$574 million in the negative.
J. Thomas Perdue, a Policy Analyst at Georgia Public Policy Foundation, told Fortune that “the policy direction has clearly shifted.”
“State and local governments bear the immediate cost through revenue they do not collect,” Perdue said. “Whether that cost is ultimately felt through other taxes or reduced public spending depends on subsequent budget decisions.”
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