Project Turbo was a proposed 1.2 billion dollar, 900,000 square foot data center campus on 119 acres off O'Kelly Road in southeast Hall County near Gainesville. After months of resident opposition over water use (an estimated 225,000 gallons per day) and traffic, the developer withdrew the special use application in December 2025 rather than face a commission vote. Hall County has since been drafting a data center ordinance as its prior moratorium expired in summer 2026, but no new specific project has been reported there as of this writing.
Most of the county is served by Jackson EMC, with parts on Georgia Power or Sawnee EMC or Habersham EMC. Jackson EMC describes its territory as reaching Gainesville. As a cooperative, its wholesale power comes mostly from Oglethorpe Power.
Oglethorpe Power, which generates most of the electricity Georgia's EMCs sell, is adding natural gas plants it ties to data center and industrial load. EMC rates are set by each cooperative's board, not the Public Service Commission, so watch your EMC's rate notices.
Oglethorpe Power is the wholesale generation and transmission cooperative owned by Georgia's 38 electric membership cooperatives, and it is not directly rate regulated by the Georgia Public Service Commission the way Georgia Power is, so there is no PSC docket number for its generation projects. Oglethorpe Power broke ground on May 7, 2026 on a two unit, roughly 1,425 megawatt, 3.3 billion dollar combined cycle gas plant next to its existing Smarr Energy Facility in Monroe County, targeting commercial operation around 2029 to serve 29 of its 38 member cooperatives, plus a smaller gas addition planned at the Talbot Energy Facility for 2028. No specific verified dollar impact on individual electric membership cooperative household bills has been published yet, since those retail rates are set separately by each member cooperative.
Every Georgia rate case in dollars a month, with hearing dates: willmybillgoup.com, our rate case tracker.
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