"“The numbers that matter most are still secret,” said Monika Gerhart of the Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association."
"Nearly all observers agree that Alabama’s new data center policies released this week are an improvement over the state’s old rules, which treat massive, power-hungry data centers like any other large industrial operation.
But several groups say the new rules for contracts between the data centers and Alabama Power, the state’s largest electric utility, don’t go far enough to require transparency and protect other electric customers from paying extra to support data centers.
“The process that was adopted is better than what we had before,” said Jaclyn Brass, an attorney in the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Alabama office.
“But much more needs to be done to ensure that customers aren’t going to foot the bills for the data center build-out,” Brass said. “And more also needs to be done to increase accountability and transparency in Alabama Power regulation across the board.”"
Dennis Pillion reports for Inside Climate News October 23, 2026.
