James_Nov-Dec_2025_web - Flipbook - Page 25
Kim Greene’s professional career began in 1991 when she joined the Southern Company
as an engineer, and she has held various executive positions within the company and its
subsidiaries before becoming chairman, president and CEO of Georgia Power in 2023.
evaluates our energy needs over a 20year horizon and helps to ensure we’re
expanding generation resources,
transmission and distribution infrastructure, and customer programs
like energy efficiency appropriately.
This comprehensive, collaborative and
transparent planning process is at the
heart of our state’s constructive regulatory environment and what makes
Georgia so successful when it comes
to the intersection of energy policy
and economic development.
Phil Kent Last fall marked a year
since Hurricane Helene ripped
through our state, and Georgia
Power had an impressive all-handson-deck response. How has the
rebuilding effort been to date, and
what is the state of Georgia’s electric power grid?
Kim Greene It’s hard to believe it’s
been over a year since our state came
together to respond to this historic storm. Helene became the most
destructive hurricane in our company’s 140-year history, causing more
damage than hurricanes Michael,
Irma, and Matthew combined— and
we matched that with the largest
response force we have ever put in
the field. More than 20,000 personnel
from Georgia Power and assisting
utilities restored 95 percent of impacted customers within 8 days.
Working with the Georgia Public
Service Commission (PSC), we’ve
invested billions in smart grid technology and resiliency, which reduced
outages and strengthened the grid
against extreme weather. These
systems helped prevent sustained
outages for thousands during Helene and allowed crews to focus on
the hardest-hit areas. In places like
Augusta and Valdosta, we rebuilt the
hardest hit areas of the grid from the
ground up with smarter, stronger
infrastructure.
Looking back, we were as prepared as we could be for the devastation that followed, and I’m incredibly
proud of how our teams responded—
not just in the days and weeks after,
but throughout 2025 as rebuilding
continued across the state. Helene
was a historic storm, and I hope we
never see another like it. But our
state’s power grid has emerged stronger as a result.
PK For 12 consecutive years Georgia
has been recognized as the number
one state for business. What do you
see as Georgia Power’s role in keeping that momentum?
KG Georgia continues to grow, and
that’s great news for all of us. Georgia
Power has proudly partnered with
the state’s economic development
team for a century and has been
ranked a top utility for economic
development nationally for nearly
30 consecutive years. Since 2014,
our efforts have helped attract more
than 214,000 new jobs and more than
$81.9 billion in capital investment.
Supporting this growth requires
long-term planning, which we do
through our Integrated Resource
Plan (IRP) process with the Georgia
PSC and other stakeholders. The IRP
PK There’s been a lot in the news
about large industry and users of
electricity coming to Georgia— data
centers to be more specific. How is
Georgia Power managing that?
KG Georgia’s economic momentum
isn’t just about data centers— it’s
about balance and breadth. Certainly, data centers are a large part
of our current growth trajectory
and that’s great news as part of the
broader economic growth story.
These large load customers, often
requiring 100 megawatts or more,
are investing heavily in Georgia’s
infrastructure. Thanks to new rules
approved by the Georgia PSC in
2025, these customers commit to
long-term contracts, minimize bills
and provide financial guarantees.
We believe we have struck the right
balance, providing the large customers with the reliable supply they
need, while ensuring that residential
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