General Manager’s Message – January 2026
Think About It
A new year serving the members of South Alabama Electric Cooperative has begun. The older I get, the faster the years seem to pass.
As a young lad in 1966, the first season of “Star Trek” aired — I was trying to use some Scottish words (“young lad”) to honor my favorite character, Scotty. On the show, Captain Kirk would order Mr. Zulu to go to warp speed. All I know about warp speed is it was fast, and I feel the years passing by at Warp Speed 7.
I don’t like New Year’s resolutions because most are broken very quickly. I like to think! Mostly, I think about my character as it relates to my faith and service to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Next, I think about my character as a husband, a father, and PawPaw to my grandsons. If I don’t think about these attributes of my character, Satan will get a foothold in my life. I ask Jesus each day to guide me down his path, not mine.
The other day, I read about an organization where all they do is think.
The article addressed the issue of artificial intelligence data centers sponging up excess energy capacity. There are areas around the country where electricity prices have increased twice as much as inflation. This increase is hovering around 18%. Your cooperative has not changed any electricity rates in more than 2 years. For 2026, we budgeted a slight increase of 3.2%, mainly due to the higher cost of power, higher interest rates, and the cost of building an electric distribution plant.
The think tank blames soaring energy demand on AI data centers. But the real impact of data centers is not on the electric grid yet. When you look at the data, which I’d expect those thinkers would do before throwing out solutions, the initial capacity shortage is from regulations causing power generators to close baseload fossil fuel plants before their end of life. These were either not replaced or were replaced with intermittent power facilities like solar or wind. When you close more than you build, you fall short!!
If you can get equipment like generators and transformers, building a baseload natural gas power plant takes about 4 years. Over the past 2 decades, electric use has been flat. Manufacturers have long lead times supplying utilities because they are not tooled up to the new demand for these generators and transformers.
Is the surge of AI data centers causing more electricity demand? Yes. Can we solve that problem? Yes. I believe in capitalism and the American can-do spirit.
The think tank’s road map to solving the problem includes AI data centers putting heat pumps in households currently using inefficient electric heating, cooling or water heating. They also want data centers to provide batteries and a 5 kW solar panel system for suitable homes.
They say it’s time to reject the idea that the solution is adding more fossil fuel power plants to the grid, while ignoring the missed opportunity inside millions of households with existing links to the grid.
We don’t need to be exclusively in any 1 source of energy. We need to be diversified in our energy portfolio. But let me address each roadmap scenario.
First, heat pumps work best when a home is properly insulated. Otherwise, homeowners may use more power to get to their comfort level. How will manufacturers produce all those heat pumps, and who will install them? It puts us back into the same short supply scenario as we are in with generators and transformers.
Second, investing in home batteries and 5 kW solar panels. As my oldest grandson, Kristian, would say, “Pawpaw, what would happen if?” What would happen if we were to have 10 days of extremely cold weather with some snow and limited sunshine? The batteries die, and the solar panels do not produce. The electric grid would have to be able to support the additional demand from those homes. This has already occurred, sadly, in February 2021. The electric system failed in Texas, and people died. This scenario from the thinkers increases that risk.
In my opinion, the underlying goal of these thinkers is not to solve the electricity demand issue. It’s to push their plan for exclusive renewable energy at any cost.
Your cooperative has a reasonable, not perfect, track record for serving our members. We’ve been pushing energy-efficient heat pumps and insulated homes over my 33-year career.
Y’all have a great month, and think about it.