Alaska power and the grid
The Railbelt, Cook Inlet gas, the turbines and the interties. Who pays when a new load the size of a city plugs in.
Where this beat stands
Alaska AI tracks 8 decisions on this beat, each one with the documents it was verified against. 1 is open for public comment right now. The nearest date is Nov 13 on Enstar's Cook Inlet gas storage plan (Kenai Loop Pool). The bodies deciding on this beat include Alaska DNR, Division of Oil and Gas, Department of the Air Force, Enhanced Use Lease program and Golden Valley Electric Association board of directors.
The live instrument on this beat
The decisions below move on a scale of months. The physical system moves daily, and Cook Inlet Gas Watch reads it every day, measured storage against modeled demand, published as open data. CINGSA keeps no archive of its own, so that record exists only because it is collected and committed daily. It states no verdict about whether supply is adequate, because the data can't carry one.
Decisions on this beat
STAK Energy's North Slope AI campus lease
Pending decision · Alaska DNR, Division of Oil and Gas
A preliminary decision would give STAK Energy a 50-year lease on 715.4 acres of state land about 26 miles south of Deadhorse for a gas-fired AI and cloud campus its developer pegs at more than $10 billion, with 1 to 3 gigawatts of on-site generation. More than 500 public comments arrived before the first deadline; fewer than a dozen supported the project.
4 sources on file · the full record
Air Force land leases for AI data centers at JBER, Eielson and Clear
Pending decision · Department of the Air Force, Enhanced Use Lease program
The Air Force offered about 4,700 acres across 12 parcels at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Eielson AFB and Clear Space Force Station for privately financed AI data centers. Residents near the five Eielson-area parcels raised noise, permafrost and grid concerns, including one parcel less than a mile from North Pole Middle School.
13 sources on file · the full record
GVEA's $80 million turbine decision
Pending decision · Golden Valley Electric Association board of directors
Golden Valley Electric Association is weighing a 60 megawatt naphtha fueled turbine estimated at $80 million, to be installed beside an existing LM6000 at the co-op's North Pole Expansion plant. Its board voted on August 25th, 2026 to keep the purchase alive and to keep studying the risks and the alternatives.
8 sources on file · the full record
Closed · Alaska Legislature, third special session
A conference committee compromise unveiled July 2nd would swap the state property tax on the Glenfarne-led Alaska LNG project for a volumetric tax after five years of operation or 500 MMcf per day, and extend the completion deadline to the end of 2034. The House deadlocked 19 to 19 on July 16th over an expanded S corporation income tax, the governor rejected that provision, and a third special session convened July 27th with no bill from the governor and almost no legislators in the room.
16 sources on file · the full record
Enstar's Cook Inlet gas storage plan (Kenai Loop Pool)
Open for comment · Regulatory Commission of Alaska (prudency); Alaska DNR (storage lease and technical determination) · Nov 13
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska denied Enstar's request for an advance determination that its proposed Cook Inlet gas storage project was prudent, in a 17-page order the Anchorage Daily News reported on July 10th, saying the utility lacked basic information. The $240 million plan would have bought the depleted Kenai Loop Pool from AIX Energy to hold 25 billion cubic feet of gas, close to half Enstar's annual demand, and Enstar suspended it after the order. The commission denied Enstar's petition for reconsideration 3 to 2 on August 21st, with a written order to follow. Enstar applied to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission on September 17th to store gas in the Kenai Loop field, with a hearing tentatively set for November 12th. On October 13th the Division of Oil and Gas issued a preliminary written finding that a Kenai Loop storage lease to ENSTAR would best serve the state's interest, ahead of Hilcorp's competing application, and public comment on that finding runs until 5 p.m. on November 13th.
12 sources on file · the full record
Anchorage data-center zoning ordinance AO 2026-27
Decided · Anchorage Assembly
On March 27th, 2026 the Anchorage Assembly adopted ordinance AO 2026-27 in a 10 to 2 vote, defining data centers in the municipal zoning code for the first time. It confines them to commercial and industrial zones, requires landscaping buffers and enclosed power equipment, and requires written statements from electric and water utilities that the grid has sufficient system capacity before a project proceeds. Members Scott Myers and Keith McCormick voted against it.
3 sources on file · the full record
HB 259, state utility standards for large data centers
Closed · Alaska Legislature (House Energy Committee)
HB 259, introduced by Rep. Donna Mears in January 2026, would have set utility rate-setting guidelines and community benefit agreement standards for large energy use facilities such as data centers, and given the Regulatory Commission of Alaska new duties over them. The House Energy Committee heard it twice, on January 29th and February 3rd, 2026, taking testimony from Greensparc, GCI, the Alaska Municipal League and former Rep. Paul Seaton. It never advanced out of that committee, and it carried a second referral to House Community and Regional Affairs it never reached. The bill died with the 34th Legislature at sine die on May 20th, 2026. Alaska still has no statewide cost-allocation rule governing how a large data-center load is billed against other ratepayers, which leaves that question with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska and with individual utility boards.
3 sources on file · the full record
The AI ratepayer pledge, and which Alaska utilities have signed it
Watching · Each Alaska electric utility board, including the Railbelt cooperatives
The White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge asks AI companies, utilities and data center developers to commit that new data center load pays for its own generation and delivery instead of shifting the cost onto households. USA TODAY and POWER both describe it as voluntary and non binding. Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed the governors addendum on July 23rd, 2026, one of 23 governors. The signatory list has grown from 281 when it was first read here on July 26th, 2026 to 324 on October 10th, and across that growth exactly one Alaska entity appears on it, Cordova Electric Cooperative, a 1,566 customer cooperative that is not connected by transmission line to any other community. No Railbelt utility has signed.
5 sources on file · the full record
Every one of these is also in the full Alaska AI Docket, published as open data at /data/ under CC BY 4.0.
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Data centers · Power and the grid · Land and permitting · Defense and federal · Research and science · Data sovereignty · State policy