‘My childhood home is being taken’: Eminent domain for data centers targets properties across a thousand miles of grid expansion in Georgia

A public utility company in Georgia is proposing a transmission project that can potentially displace hundreds of property owners as it looks to expand its energy capabilities to power new AI data center projects. 

Georgia Power is rolling out a grid expansion plan that includes building more than 1,000 miles of transmission lines—spanning over 330 parcels of land, including through residential property—and adding about 10 gigawatts of new generating capacity over the next five years. Building those lines, however, would mean levelling nearly 30 residential properties.

“My childhood home is being taken by Georgia Power,” said Ansley Brown, a Georgian whose house is affected, in a post on Instagram. “They are going to bulldoze this entire property to the ground.”

The construction plan

Some residents are faced with selling their homes or having them taken through eminent domain, as Georgia Power begins work on one of five current projects to expand its energy capabilities.

Last year, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved Georgia Power’s 2025 Integrated Resource Plan, which detailed the projected energy needs of customers and the state’s expected continued power necessities due to AI investment.

“The 10-year plan includes new transmission resources across more than 1,000 miles of transmission lines,” the filing read. “Additionally, the Georgia PSC approved a formal process to evaluate new grid enhancing technologies to help meet increasing grid capacity needs.”

Georgia Power is now reaching out to affected residents who live along a 35-mile stretch between Fayette, Heard, Fulton, and Coweta Counties as it looks to build a transmission line between its Ashley Park Substation and its plant in Wansley. The proposal, dubbed the Ashley Park-Wansley Transmission Project, will be used to “serve the broader needs of the communities and customers who rely on critical and reliable service infrastructure,” a Georgia Power spokesperson told Fortune.

But some residents are saying it’s just another negative consequence of the data center boom.

Brown, a daughter of a Georgian property owner who is faced with selling their home, took to social media amidst the negotiations. Fortune reached out to accounts claiming to be Brown on every platform where she posted, but did not hear back by the time of publication.

“We don’t have a choice in this. They are going to be expanding power lines,” she said in one........

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