Southern Co. contracted large load rises to 17 GW

Southern Company, the parent of Georgia Power, Alabama Power, and Mississippi Power, says it has signed contracts to supply 17 gigawatts of power to large customers, up 6 gigawatts since early 2026. Most of that growth is coming from data centers. One recent deal is a 25-year contract with OpenAI for a 3.2-gigawatt data center near Savannah, Georgia, expected to start drawing power in 2028. That single contract includes 1 gigawatt of "flexible demand response," meaning the data center has agreed to cut its power use at peak times when the grid is strained — the first time Southern has locked in this kind of arrangement with a data center customer.

For homeowners in Southern's service area, this matters because data center electricity use was up 55% year over year in the second quarter, and the company plans to spend $68 billion through 2030 building new power plants and grid infrastructure to keep up. Southern executives said they are trying to make sure data centers, not regular customers, cover the cost of this buildout through minimum bills, long-term contracts, and other financial requirements. Whether that holds up over time is worth watching, since large increases in grid spending can eventually show up in electricity rates for everyone.

Southern also flagged public pushback against data centers nationally, with its CEO saying the industry needs to do a better job explaining the benefits to communities. Separately, the company noted ongoing litigation and regulatory questions tied to coal ash disposal at some of its plants in Alabama.