Residents tell Georgia regulators they want more green energy: How we reported this story

When Georgia’s largest electric utility company, Georgia Power, sought approval from state regulators to update its 2022 and 2023 plan to meet the energy demand of millions of customers, activists sounded an alarm.

Georgia Power customers cautioned that the company’s continued use of natural gas and coal power plants was setting back the clock on the progress to mitigate climate change.

Georgia Power argued that using more traditional power sources such as fossil fuels was necessary because there was a huge spike in demand for energy, and they needed to use what they could already rely on.

Despite the concerns from doctors, lawyers, engineering students, retirees, professors, grandparents and residents across many other demographics, the five-member PSC approved Georgia Power’s plans. This prompted a question from Kala Hunter, our climate change reporter at the Ledger-Enquirer: Are members of the public telling the PSC whether they prefer renewable energy or fossil fuels? And if so, is the PSC listening?

The five commissioners on the decision-making board are elected officials, and they seek input from their constituents. From 2022 to 2024, as that commission decided on multiple Georgia Power energy plans, known formally as an Integrated Resource Plan, nearly 1,000 people submitted comments to the PSC through an online comment portal, which the public was directed to use to give feedback about the plan.

Kala, with the help of Telegraph climate change reporter Margaret Walker, analyzed the 1,000+ comments to assess what the public opinion was among those who took the time to share their thoughts. They found that about 90% of people actually wanted the PSC to make Georgia Power change its plans. Many of those commenters raised concern over climate change tied to fossil fuels. About 44% of the comments featured complaints about Georgia Power’s fossil fuel use.

Kala obtained every comment made through the Georgia Open Records Act. To analyze such a large number of comments, reporters used software to extract names, emails, the comments and other information from hundreds of pages of documents that were provided.

The reporters used a generative AI model to sort comments by their support or opposition for Georgia Power’s energy plan. After they were sorted, our reporters manually verified that every comment was sorted correctly, to confirm our numbers were correct. There were some comments — duplicates and remarks that were unrelated to the cases that the PSC was voting on — that we decided not to factor into our data.

After determining how many commenters supported or opposed the plans, our reporters took their findings to the members of the Public Service Commission and asked to interview them about their process for voting on Georgia Power’s IRPs. Three commissioners agreed to be interviewed in-person. One agreed to answer questions via email, and one declined to comment because the request was made close to the time of Georgia Power releasing its next proposed energy plan.

All of this information, combined with input from a former public service commissioner, further details about Georgia Power’s energy mix, and additional data about support for renewable energy, combined to form our first story in a series about Georgia’s use of green energy, and who influences the way the Peach State is powered. We hope you’ll read this story and those that follow.

This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 10:22 AM with the headline "Residents tell Georgia regulators they want more green energy: How we reported this story."