Georgia resource plan filing lists approved generation additions and revised load forecast

Integrated resource planning before the Georgia Public Service Commission has become a case study in the asymmetry between load-driven utility procurement and merchant interconnection. A utility that revises its load forecast upward can seek approval for capacity additions on a schedule set by the commission. An independent developer seeking to serve the same growth waits for a study cycle.

That asymmetry is not the product of bad faith. Vertically integrated planning and organised-market interconnection are different regulatory technologies with different clocks. But it produces a predictable outcome: where load growth is concentrated in vertically integrated states, incumbent utilities capture a disproportionate share of the resulting build.

For an investor, this argues for reading state resource plans as a leading indicator of where merchant opportunity is closing rather than opening.

For a policymaker, the question is whether competitive procurement requirements can be made to operate on the utility's timeline rather than the queue's.

What to watch: procurement mechanisms attached to approved plans, and whether they are open to third parties in practice.