The largest utility company in Georgia is conducting a massive upgrade of its grid, and part of this project requires the connecting its Ashley Park Substation to Plant Wansley, which is currently undergoing an upgrade. The 35-mile stretch between the two facilities will go through Fayette, Heard, Fulton, and Coweta Counties, and require the removal of 30 residential properties along its path, reports Fortune. This included Ansley Brown’s family home, who took to Instagram to share her story.
“Georgia Power is forcibly taking people’s homes, okay? They have no choice in this matter,” Brown said in her IG post. “As you can see behind me, these are the power lines, and this is my childhood home. My childhood home is being taken by Georgia Power — they’re going to bulldoze this entire property to the ground. We don’t have a choice in this. They’re going to be expanding these power lines. Why? For the data centers. All of this is for the data centers.”
Thankfully, her family was able to get in touch with their representative, Brian Jack (R-GA), who sent people on the ground to take stock of the situation and connected the two parties. Brown said in her last update that they’ve already settled with Georgia Power, with the company telling Fortune that the family has agreed to a settlement for an undisclosed amount.
While this ended up on a somewhat positive note for the family, this is an example of what one report previously warned about government using eminent domain to seize land for the AI infrastructure build out. Georgia Power isn’t exactly building the transmission line to connect a power plant directly to a data center, but AI data centers’ massive power demands have caused massive opposition to projects like this to appear nationwide. It also doesn’t help that an AI data center, which is being accused of secretly using up 29 million gallons of water, sits less than five miles to the southwest of the substation.
The current administration has been pushing for AI data centers, believing that it needs all that infrastructure so it can win the “AI race” against China. However, the U.S. power grid is sorely lagging behind its Asian rival, meaning U.S. power utilities and electricity providers are spending billions of dollars to upgrade the grid. This, in turn, is being passed on to every power consumer, which is heavily affecting the average American. President Donald Trump instituted and expanded the “ratepayer protection pledge” in attempt to control the spiraling costs.
California has been trying to pass a law that will codify these promises, but the same tech companies that signed the pledge are also reportedly lobbying against the bill. At the moment, Oregon is the only state that has a regulation that forces big consumers (like data centers) to pay their fair share, with industries using 20MW or more getting slapped with a 30% increase in their power bill while residents and commercial users get their costs slashed by 1.3%.
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