Leaders from Georgia Power, Southern Company, the Department of Energy, state and local elected officials, and community leaders gathered on April 30 at Plant Wansley to discuss the future of the power plant site in West Georgia. The event marked a new phase for Plant Wansley, which has played a key role in Georgia’s energy supply since it opened in 1976.
Plant Wansley retired all active coal-fired generation in 2022. Construction has now begun on two combined cycle units that will generate a total of 1,453 megawatts of energy and a new battery energy storage system with a capacity of 500 megawatts. These projects are part of broader efforts to modernize Georgia’s power infrastructure as demand grows.
In February, Southern Company and the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing announced a $26.5 billion loan package to support these projects at Plant Wansley as well as similar initiatives in Alabama. Over an estimated thirty-year term for these loans, customers are expected to see savings totaling about $7 billion.
Kim Greene, chairman, president and chief executive officer for Georgia Power said during the event: “This development at Plant Wansley is just one example of what’s happening across Georgia where we are adding more than 10,000 megawatts of new generation in the coming years to provide baseload power and forecastable, dispatchable capacity for our customers.” Greene continued: “The future of Wansley reflects how Georgia Power continues to evolve to meet the needs of a growing state—supporting economic development, strengthening reliability, and delivering energy our customers can count on today and for decades to come. We are grateful for the support and partnership of the Department of Energy, the members of the Georgia General Assembly and Georgia Public Service Commission, and many other state and local partners who share our commitment to reliable and affordable energy for every Georgian.”
With approval from the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), additional natural gas generation projects are planned or underway at other sites including Plant Bowen in Bartow County; Plant McIntosh in Effingham County; and Plant Yates in Coweta County. Thousands more megawatts from battery storage systems are also being developed along with over one thousand miles of new transmission lines planned across Georgia.
At the event Greene also said that customer benefits were central to these developments: as large-load customers such as data centers increase across Georgia’s growing economy they help spread fixed costs more broadly—enabling base rate freezes—and allow commitments like annual savings beginning in 2029 for typical residential customers.
