Amazon Data Services purchased about 985 acres off High Falls Park Road near I-75 Exit 198 in Lamar County for about 270 million dollars in July 2025, the largest real estate transaction in county history. The land was already zoned for warehousing and distribution as part of the Legacy 75 Trade Center, and Amazon has said only that it is evaluating the site and performing due diligence for a possible data center, with no formal data center application filed as of the most recent reporting found. Lamar County has since passed a data center moratorium affecting future development there.
Most of the county is served by Central Georgia EMC, with parts on Barnesville municipal (city owned) or Southern Rivers Energy or Georgia Power. Barnesville has its own municipal electric utility for the city itself. 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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