GAM Advocates for Manufacturers at the Public Service Commission
GAM has a long and successful history of advocacy before the Georgia Public Service Commission. The Commission is a five-member elected body whose members serve staggered six-year terms and regulate utilities in the electric, natural gas and telecommunications industries. It regularly conducts litigation with numerous parties in a wide variety of cases that set the rates, terms and conditions for the operation of the state’s investor-owned utilities. GAM consistently intervenes in cases impacting its members, in particular cases involving Georgia Power.
Georgia Power files three primary types of cases before the Commission that are of interest to manufacturers:
- (1) base rate cases -- very complex cases that address a wide variety of issues, including the Company’s rate of return, overall revenue requirement and rate design for each customer class and tariff;
- (2) fuel cost recovery cases, in which the Commission sets rates based on projected costs of the fuel that generates electricity, including natural gas, coal, nuclear fuel and other sources; and
- (3) integrated resource plan cases, which don’t set customer rates but have a significant impact nonetheless by approving a blueprint for Georgia Power’s future generation mix, transmission system, renewable energy commitments and other key planning factors. In all of these cases, GAM intervenes and advocates on behalf of its members to ensure the Association’s key goal for manufacturers: reliably delivered and competitively priced electricity.
GAM engages in a number of ways, including discussions with parties (Georgia Power, the Commission and its staff, and other interveners) before and during each case. GAM hires its own expert witnesses to testify before the Commission and participates in the hearings including cross-examining the witnesses of other parties. When the evidentiary hearings have concluded, GAM will file written briefs and present oral arguments before the Commission. Finally – and critically – GAM works in a cooperative manner with all parties to seek a consensus resolution and, where a proposed settlement is achieved that benefits GAM members, advocate for its approval by the Commission.
The results of GAM’s efforts have been demonstrated over and over again across the past several decades. GAM members have experienced rate savings and cost avoidance easily in the hundreds of millions of dollars, all directly attributable to the advocacy of GAM. Recent examples include $230 million in savings and benefits to members from 2023 through 2025 based on GAM’s intervention in the 2022 Georgia Power Rate Case and an estimated $65 million in annual benefits thanks to GAM’s engagement on issues regarding the construction of Plant Vogtle Nuclear Units 3 and 4. At the conclusion of each case members served by Georgia Power receive individually tailored impact analyses detailing the benefits derived from GAM’s advocacy. The savings and cost avoidance figures included in these analyses are based on objective data and conservatively estimated.
The coming year will be an extremely busy one for GAM, with the Georgia Power 2025 Integrated Resource Plan in the first half of the year and the 2025 Georgia Power Rate Case in the second half. If you have any questions about GAM’s engagement on energy issues, please don’t hesitate to contact me. And if you are not a GAM member please join us so that we can enhance the strength of manufacturing’s voice and the Association’s effectiveness in the years to come.
