The Tennessee Valley Authority is developing a new rate structure for incoming data centers and reviewing what existing facilities pay for power, board member Randy Jones said in an interview with Axios.
Jones, a Guntersville resident nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate earlier this year, spoke with the outlet at his Guntersville office about the region’s growth and the pressure it puts on the grid.
“There’s going to be a whole new rate structure” for new facilities, Jones said, while TVA examines the rates its existing data center customers currently pay.
New data centers will be expected to arrive with detailed plans for how they will secure power, pay for it and move it across TVA’s transmission system, Jones said.
“They’re going to come in and give us their plan of action: How they’re going to get the power, how they’re going to pay for it and put it on our transmission lines to make it work,” he told Axios.
“We can’t put it on the back of the grandmother in Asbury, Alabama, who’s trying to raise two grandkids,” Jones added. “A 10% power rate [increase] for her [is the] difference between maybe having lunch one day, having dinner one day.”
Any prospective customer requesting more than 100 megawatts of load requires approval from TVA’s board, spokesperson Clarissa McClain told Axios. Most large-scale data center campuses now under development nationally exceed that threshold.
The comments come amid growing national scrutiny of data center construction, including from conservatives, over concerns that the facilities strain electric grids and push up household power bills.
Jones pointed to a wave of recent economic development announcements across the Valley: Eli Lilly’s $6 billion pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Huntsville, Google’s $1.5 billion data center expansion announced in June, the Navy and Hadrian’s $2.4 billion advanced shipbuilding facility in Alabama, and JST’s $500 million electronic connector facility in Guntersville — roughly $10.4 billion combined.
“It’s all being driven by power that TVA is providing,” he told the local affiliate.
Google is among the existing data center operators in TVA’s service territory. The Axios report did not identify which facilities’ rates are under review.
On supply, Jones said that natural gas is the fastest way to meet rising demand while longer-term generation develops, noting gas plants can be built in about two and a half years.
“Right now, that’s where the quick fix on this is … as far as the next 10 years,” Jones told Axios, as natural gas plants can be constructed in two and a half years.
His comments come as Huntsville, Athens and Scottsboro pursue a new regional natural gas pipeline through the North Alabama Public Energy District.
Grayson Everett is the editor in chief of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @Grayson270.
