Georgia Power is proposing to build more than 1,000 miles of new transmission lines, spanning over 330 parcels of land — including residential properties — as part of a grid expansion plan designed to add approximately 10 gigawatts of generating capacity over the next five years. The rollout would level nearly 30 residential properties, leaving affected homeowners to either negotiate a sale or face eminent domain proceedings.
'My childhood home is being taken by Georgia Power,' Ansley Brown wrote in an Instagram post. 'They are going to bulldoze this entire property to the ground.' Brown, whose mother owns one of the affected properties, added in a separate video: 'We don't have a choice in this. They are going to be expanding power lines. Why? For the data centers.'
Georgia Power is currently focused on a 35-mile stretch connecting its Ashley Park Substation to its Wansley plant, running through Fayette, Heard, Fulton, and Coweta Counties. The utility describes the Ashley Park-Wansley Transmission Project as serving 'the broader needs of the communities and customers who rely on critical and reliable service infrastructure,' according to a Georgia Power spokesperson who spoke to Fortune.
The company formally denies that the line is a data-center-focused project, stating it is 'not in the data center business.' However, reports from CBS estimate that 70 to 80 percent of the power from this particular line will be diverted to AI data centers — a figure Georgia Power told Fortune it could not confirm. Separately, in a December 2025 agreement, the Georgia Public Service Commission and Georgia Power certified a nearly 10,000-megawatt energy generation plan that the agreement itself states is 'approximately 80 percent of which is expected to power data centers.'
The underlying expansion was authorized after the Georgia PSC approved Georgia Power's 2025 Integrated Resource Plan, which projected the state's energy needs driven in part by continued AI investment. Georgia Power states that both land acquisition and easement negotiations are 'close' to completion, with construction slated to begin as early as next year.
In Brown's case, a Georgia Power representative told Fortune that negotiations with her family have concluded. 'We're pleased to have reached an agreement with Ansley's mother and bring this matter to a successful resolution,' the representative said. Brown, according to her own Instagram posts, said that Congressman Brian Jack — who a spokeswoman confirmed 'has received multiple requests for help and support from constituents concerning Georgia Power activity in the district and has worked diligently to address each with the stakeholders involved' — scheduled a meeting with Georgia Power stakeholders and 'fought for a resolution.'
The numbers come first, and here they are stark: 330 parcels, nearly 30 homes, 10 gigawatts, and roughly 80 cents of every power dollar flowing to data centers. Georgia Power's legal authority to condemn private property rests on its status as a regulated public utility — a designation built around serving households and businesses, not hyperscale server farms. When the state's own certified plan acknowledges that four-fifths of new generation is earmarked for data centers, the 'public use' rationale that justifies eminent domain deserves rigorous scrutiny from Georgia's legislature and courts.
Free enterprise depends on clear property rights. Capital rewards clear rules — and one of the clearest rules in a market economy is that private land cannot be seized without genuine public benefit. The AI buildout is a legitimate economic force, but the cost of powering it should not be offloaded onto homeowners who never signed up to subsidize Silicon Valley's infrastructure. If Georgia Power and its data-center customers want those transmission lines, the market offers a path: negotiate, compensate fairly, and let property owners decide. The power of eminent domain is a last resort, not a cost-savings tool.
