2020 Georgia Code
Title 46 - Public Utilities and Public Transportation
Chapter 3 - Electrical Service
Article 1 - Generation and Distribution of Electricity Generally
Part 1 - Allocation of Territorial Rights to Electric Suppliers
§ 46-3-3. Definitions

As used in this part, the term:

1. "Assigned area" means an enclosed geographic area assigned to only one electric supplier by the commission or by this part, and inside which the assignee electric supplier shall have the exclusive right to extend and continue furnishing service to new premises, except as otherwise provided in this part.
2. "Electric membership corporation" has the meaning provided by paragraph (3) of Code Section 46-3-171.
3. "Electric supplier" means any electric light and power company subject to regulation by the commission, any electric membership corporation furnishing retail service in this state, and any municipality which furnishes such service within this state.
4. "Line" means any conductor for the distribution or transmission of electricity other than a conductor operating at a potential of 120,000 volts or more. However, a conductor that initially constitutes a line shall not cease being a line if, after March 29, 1973, it is operating at a potential in excess of 120,000 volts.
5. "Municipality" means:
   1. Any geographically defined political subdivision of this state, other than a county, performing or authorized to perform multiple and substantial municipal functions, specifically including either the function of furnishing retail electric service or the function of granting to electric suppliers street franchise rights for use in furnishing retail electric service;
   2. Any geographically defined political subdivision, or agency thereof, of this state if at any relevant time it lawfully furnishes retail electric service; and
   3. Any political subdivision of any other state which furnishes retail electric service within this state.
6. "Premises" means the building, structure, or facility to which electricity is being or is to be furnished, provided that two or more buildings, structures, or facilities which are located on one tract or contiguous tracts of land and are utilized by one electric consumer shall together constitute one premises; provided, however, that any such building, structure, or facility shall not, together with any other building, structure, or facility, constitute one premises if the permanent service to it is separately metered and the charges for such service are calculated independently of charges for service to any other building, structure, or facility; provided, further, that an outdoor security light, or an outdoor sign requiring less than 2200 watts, shall not constitute a premises.
7. "Primary supplier" within a municipality in existence on March 29, 1973, means, either:
   1. That electric supplier which, on March 29, 1973, is furnishing service to the majority or to a plurality, whichever is the case, of the retail electric meters then inside the corporate limits of the municipality; or
   2. That electric supplier to which the commission has reassigned a geographic area, previously assigned to another electric supplier, located within such municipality as its limits existed on March 29, 1973.
8. "Secondary supplier" within a municipality in existence on March 29, 1973, means any electric supplier which owns lines on that date within such municipality and which is not a primary supplier.
9. "Service" means retail electric service and includes temporary or construction service as well as permanent service but excludes wholesale service and sales for resale.
10. "To own" or "to belong" or the like means, wherever used in reference to lines being used by an electric supplier, to have any proprietary or possessory interest.
11. "Unassigned area-A" means a geographic area which, between March 29, 1973, and Sept. 1, 1975, was not an assigned area and was not declared to be an unassigned area-B.
12. "Unassigned area-B" means a geographic area which has not been assigned and which has been declared by the commission to be, or by operation of this part becomes, an unassigned area-B, and inside which an electric supplier shall have the right to extend and thereafter continue furnishing service to new premises locating therein if chosen by the consumer utilizing such premises, provided that an electric supplier whose line, as it exists on March 29, 1973, or as thereafter lawfully constructed to serve new premises pursuant to this part, is at least partially within 500 feet of such new premises shall have the exclusive right to extend and continue furnishing service to such premises if the line of every other electric supplier so existing or so thereafter constructed is at that time wholly more than 500 feet from such premises.
13. "Wholly new municipality" means a municipality initially coming into existence after March 29, 1973, but not one resulting from the reincorporation of all or any portion of a geographic area theretofore contained in a previously existing municipality or from the merger, consolidation, or any other combination of two or more political subdivisions which are counties or incorporated cities.

(Ga. L. 1973, p. 200, § 3; Ga. L. 1982, p. 3, § 46; Ga. L. 2006, p. 72, § 46/SB 465.)

The 2006 amendment, effective April 14, 2006, part of an Act to revise, modernize, and correct the Code, substituted the present provisions of paragraph (2) for the former provisions, which read: "'Electric membership corporation' means a corporation organized under Article 2 of this chapter."

- For article, "Administrative Law," see 53 Mercer L. Rev. 81 (2001).

Paragraph 4 of Ga. L. 1973, p. 200, § 3 (see O.C.G.A.46-3-3), is not an arbitrary or capricious definition, but instead is reasonably related to the purposes of this part of Ga. L. 1973, p. 200 (see O.C.G.A. Ch. 3, T. 46). City of Calhoun v. North Ga. Elec. Membership Corp., 233 Ga. 759, 213 S.E.2d 596 (1975).

- A new jail built on land owned by a county and on which an existing correctional facility is also located, although connected by permanent enclosed covered walkways to a new, free-standing dining facility which was built at the same time as the new jail was not an addition to or extension of the existing correctional facility, but was a new premises physically separate from the existing facility, physically distinct with a separate electric system. The two facilities constituted two separate entities in terms of purpose and operation with two different legal entities responsible for operating the different facilities. Colquitt Elec. Membership Corp. v. City of Moultrie, 197 Ga. App. 794, 399 S.E.2d 497 (1990).

Under O.C.G.A. § 46-3-8(a), a utility was entitled to provide electrical service to a high school's new auditorium, even though a city had been providing service to the school itself, as the utility was providing service to new premises. O.C.G.A. § 46-3-3(6) defined "premises" as separately metered structures; the auditorium was separately metered from the school, and the city could not explain how the facilities could properly be billed through a single master meter. City of LaGrange v. Ga. PSC, 296 Ga. App. 615, 675 S.E.2d 525 (2009).

- Where a unified government is a geographically defined political subdivision of the state performing or authorized to perform multiple and substantial municipal functions, so long as it is "other than a county," it is a "municipality." Athens-Clarke County v. Walton Elec. Membership Corp., 265 Ga. 229, 454 S.E.2d 510 (1995).

- Trial court properly upheld an agency decision that a power company had the right to continue service to an apartment complex under the grandfather clause to the Territorial Act, O.C.G.A. § 46-3-8(b), after individual meters were installed to replace one master meter because none of the exceptions to the grandfather clause existed and the challenging electric corporation failed to raise the corporation's challenge to the application of the grandfather clause before the agency. Excelsior Elec. Mbrshp. Corp. v. Ga. PSC, 322 Ga. App. 687, 745 S.E.2d 870 (2013).

- When a county high school that was within the electric territory assigned to an electric membership corporation under the Georgia Territorial Electric Service Act, O.C.G.A. § 46-3-1 et seq., but which had chosen a city electric company to provide electric service under the large load exception to the Act, O.C.G.A. § 46-3-8(a), built a new gym contiguous to the existing classroom building, the grandfather clause of the Act, § 46-3-8(b), applied, and the city had the right to supply electricity to the gym. Central Ga. Elec. Mbrshp. Corp. v. Ga. Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 351 Ga. App. 69, 830 S.E.2d 459 (2019).

Cited in North Georgia Elec. Membership Corp. v. City of Dalton, 197 Ga. App. 386, 398 S.E.2d 209 (1990); City of LaGrange v. Troup County Elec. Membership Corp., 200 Ga. App. 418, 408 S.E.2d 708 (1991).