# Alaska data centers and your power bill, on the grid or off > A data center on the North Slope cannot touch your Anchorage power bill. One in the Mat-Su can. Published 2026-07-18 by Alaska AI. 9 slides. Canonical: https://alaskaaihq.com/archive/2026-07-18/ ## The story Will a data center raise your power bill? In Alaska the honest answer splits on one line. On the grid, or off it. OFF THE GRID. Runs on its own gas. Never touches your wires. ON THE GRID. Shares the wires, and the bill, with you. The one everyone feared is off the line. STAK's proposed campus sits about 25 miles south of Deadhorse and self-generates a gigawatt or more, roughly 30 percent above urban Alaska's peak. It burns gas behind the meter, with no wire to the Railbelt. This one plugs into your grid. The state just moved to hand AIDEA about 30 square miles of land near Houston for a data-center district, on the Railbelt. Public comment is open through August 19. It all turns on the rate deal. RATES COULD FALL. A big anchor load can spread fixed costs, Launch Alaska argues. RATES COULD RISE. Or compete for scarce Railbelt gas. The case for lower, in one chart. And every 1% drop leaves about $2.5M in fixed costs with nowhere to go. A big anchor load could spread those costs, the argument goes. Could. Alaska is at the very beginning. Eight data centers here, against the nation's leader at 639, as reported by Alaska's News Source. The rules get written while the count is still small. Build vs ban is the wrong fight. Houston is weighing a ban, postponed to August 13. But the lever is the rate deal. Anchorage adopted guardrails 10 to 2. The statewide bill that would set rate rules, HB 259, still sits in the House Energy Committee. Before the next data center plugs in, ask one thing. Who writes the rate deal, and does it lower your bill or raise it? On the grid or off it changes everything. What should Alaska require first? ## What we verified - Alaska's DNR moved to transfer about 30 square miles of state land north of Houston in the Mat-Su to AIDEA for a multi-use industrial and energy development district that includes data centers. [Alaska's News Source](https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2026/07/17/new-state-proposal-could-bring-data-centers-mat-su-part-industrial-park/), report, 2026-07-17. - AIDEA Executive Director Randy Ruaro said there are no pre-determined and set land use decisions made by AIDEA. [Alaska Beacon](https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/07/16/alaskas-economic-development-agency-plans-a-mat-su-industrial-park-with-data-centers/), report, 2026-07-16. - The DNR preliminary decision on the Mat-Su transfer runs 41 pages. [Alaska's News Source](https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2026/07/17/new-state-proposal-could-bring-data-centers-mat-su-part-industrial-park/), report, 2026-07-17. - Public comment on the Mat-Su land transfer is open through 5 p.m. on August 19, 2026, on the Alaska DNR website. [Alaska Beacon](https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/07/16/alaskas-economic-development-agency-plans-a-mat-su-industrial-park-with-data-centers/), report, 2026-07-16. - A Houston City Council member named Johansen introduced an ordinance in June to ban data centers within city limits, and the council voted to postpone the measure to its August 13 meeting. [Alaska's News Source](https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2026/07/17/new-state-proposal-could-bring-data-centers-mat-su-part-industrial-park/), report, 2026-07-17. - Alaska currently has 8 data centers compared with Virginia's nation-leading 639. [Alaska's News Source](https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2026/07/17/new-state-proposal-could-bring-data-centers-mat-su-part-industrial-park/), report, 2026-07-17. - STAK Energy's proposed North Slope AI and cloud campus sits about 25 miles south of Deadhorse just off the Dalton Highway and would self-generate a gigawatt or more of power, roughly 30 percent more than the peak demand of urban Alaska's entire grid. [Northern Journal](https://www.northernjournal.com/data-center-critics-flood-alaska-land-managers-with-opposition-to-north-slope-project/), report, 2026-07-03. - STAK Energy is seeking a 50-year lease of approximately 715.4 acres of state land for the campus. [Northern Alaska Environmental Center](https://northern.org/news/stak-energy-campus-what-the-states-lease-documents-reveal-about-scale-risk-and-unanswered-questions/), report, 2026-05-28. - The STAK campus would consume roughly 350 to 500 million standard cubic feet of North Slope gas per day. [Northern Alaska Environmental Center](https://northern.org/news/stak-energy-campus-what-the-states-lease-documents-reveal-about-scale-risk-and-unanswered-questions/), report, 2026-05-28. - The STAK public comment window closed July 17, 2026, having drawn more than 500 comments with fewer than a dozen in support, and STAK's John Boyle said some comments were form letters lacking substance. [Northern Journal](https://www.northernjournal.com/data-center-critics-flood-alaska-land-managers-with-opposition-to-north-slope-project/), report, 2026-07-03. - Because the STAK North Slope project is off-grid and self-generating hundreds of miles from urban Alaska, reporting states its fuel sales would have no direct impact on city dwellers' electricity prices. [Northern Journal](https://www.northernjournal.com/data-center-critics-flood-alaska-land-managers-with-opposition-to-north-slope-project/), report, 2026-07-03. - In an April 2026 ADN opinion piece, Launch Alaska's Penny Gage wrote that Chugach-area electric sales have declined about 1 percent a year for roughly 15 years, dropped another 2.3 percent in 2025, and that every 1 percent reduction leaves about 2.5 million dollars in fixed costs with nowhere to go, arguing a large new anchor load could spread those costs and lower rates. [Anchorage Daily News (opinion)](https://www.adn.com/opinions/2026/04/29/opinion-the-hidden-threat-to-your-electric-bill-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/), report, 2026-04-29. - The Railbelt already faces a shortage of locally produced gas, which is why adding large new load raises a gas-supply concern rather than a wires concern. [Anchorage Daily News](https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2026/03/04/data-centers-powering-the-ai-boom-demand-local-energy-anchorage-assembly-members-want-to-regulate-them/), report, 2026-03-04. - A state bill by Rep. Donna Mears introduced in January 2026, HB 259, would set utility rate-setting guidelines and community-benefit standards for large data centers, but it was referred to the House Energy Committee and has not advanced. [Anchorage Daily News](https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2026/03/04/data-centers-powering-the-ai-boom-demand-local-energy-anchorage-assembly-members-want-to-regulate-them/), report, 2026-03-04. - In March 2026 the Anchorage Assembly adopted ordinance AO 2026-27 in a 10 to 2 vote, confining data centers to commercial and industrial zones, requiring landscaping buffers and enclosed power equipment, and requiring written statements from electric and water utilities that the grid has sufficient system capacity. [Anchorage Daily News](https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2026/03/27/anchorage-assembly-preemptively-adopts-data-center-regulations/), report, 2026-03-27. - On July 16, 2026, Governor Dunleavy called a third Alaska LNG special session, to convene July 27, after the House deadlocked 19 to 19 and the Senate passed a gas-tax bill 11 to 8 that included a 9.4 percent pass-through tax he rejected. [Alaska Public Media](https://alaskapublic.org/news/politics/alaska-legislature/2026-07-16/dunleavy-rejecting-corporate-tax-change-calls-third-alaska-lng-special-session), report, 2026-07-16. Slides and the deck PDF are linked from the canonical page.