Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp isn’t done with EVs

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is not giving up his goal of making his state a major player in the electric vehicle space, even as it pivots to grow its electric grid by 50 percent to power a wave of AI data centers.

In a conversation with POLITICO's Energy Podcast, Kemp, a Republican who is approaching the end of his second term, said his calls to attract EV manufacturing plants were never about leveraging the tax credits that were included in former President Joe Biden's climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

In fact, Kemp opposed the passage of that 2022 law that set off a mad dash to build clean energy projects — and the tax credits' unraveling last year under President Donald Trump hasn't changed how he sees clean vehicles.

"I still feel very strongly that EVs are going to have a place in the country along with a lot of the other great vehicles that we have, and you know, it really just needs to be customer choice," he said.

During his second inaugural address in 2023, Kemp pledged to make Georgia the "electric mobility capital of America." Since then Georgia has announced over $27 billion in private and corporate investments tied to EVs and battery manufacturing.

Just last week, Hyundai opened its $5 billion plant northwest of Atlanta that will produce enough batteries to power 300,000 electric cars per year. Even without the EV incentives, Kemp said his work to bring economic developments such as EV factories to Georgia hasn't slowed down.

"I can't really speak to exactly what is on the horizon, but I'll just tell you, I've only got about six months left in office, but I've got a couple of really, really good economic development projects that the team and I are working on," he said.

At the same time, the term-limited governor — who demurred when POLITICO asked what's next for his career – said he's intent on attracting new data centers to Georgia to reap the tax benefits, even as the industry is estimated to cost the state government about $2.5 billion in lost taxes this year." Georgia is already home to at least 150 data centers, with more on the way. On Wednesday, OpenAI announced a $20 billion data center project near the port of Savannah, which is projected to use 3.2 gigawatts of energy in four years, enough to power about 3 million homes.

The push for data centers has drawn increasing hostility from residents across the state, who have raised concerns about the use of eminent domain to site power lines for the projects and the potential threat to water resources and electric bills.

Georgia Power, the state power utility owned by Southern Co., has already won approval to add 10 gigawatts of new power generation, mostly from natural gas-powered plants, though it also includes significant battery-storage as well.

While scores of counties in Georgia have enacted moratoriums, Kemp said many communities are eager to attract the data centers for the jobs and the tax revenue they offer, which can be economy-transforming. In Virginia's Loudoun County, part of the world's densest collection of data centers, for example, the roughly 200 facilities are projected to generate an estimated $1.3 billion in tax revenue this year.

"We're not trying to go around and push a data center in somebody's neighborhood that doesn't want it," Kemp said. "But there's a lot of communities that see the benefits of this and want these projects."

And he reiterated his opposition to imposing a state-wide moratorium on new data centers, a move proposed by Keisha Lance Bottoms, Georgia's Democratic candidate for governor. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York enacted the nation's first state-wide pause earlier this month.

"I'm not saying we need a data center in every community that's out there, but to have a moratorium — just like the governor of New York did, and what Keisha Lance Bottoms is proposing — to me, is irresponsible," he said.

But building new capacity to satisfy data centers' unquenchable thirst for power costs money, and skyrocketing power bills are increasingly driving angry voters to the polls. Before freezing electric rates last year, Georgia Power hiked rates six times over a three-year period, leading residents to pay on average $43 more a month, though the rates for residents are still below the national average.

Those rate hikes have triggered a backlash among voters. In a stunning upset, Democratic candidates for the Public Service Commission unseated Republican incumbents in a special election last year — ultimately flipping 22 counties that President Trump carried the year before.

Kemp pointed out that the rate hikes were related to cost recoveries for fuel and the completion of two nuclear power generators at Plant Vogtle, the most expensive infrastructure project in U.S. history that ultimately cost $35 billion, nearly double the original budget.

And with the influx of several new data centers, he said the Public Service Commission and Georgia Power are committed to ensuring ratepayers do not shoulder the extra costs of powering them.

"We're making the hyperscalers pay," Kemp said. "The bottom line is we're not going to put that on the back of the ratepayers. We're going to build our grid out, create these great jobs, supply the market, but also reduce power rates."