Electric Cooperatives CEO eyeing new policies at state, federal levels

Federal energy policy is shifting with a new presidential administration and with the Arkansas legislature in session, state energy legislation is also poised to reshape the landscape.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a muscular energy policy that centered on more oil and gas drilling as well as a loosening of regulatory hurdles on energy and retreat from the climate change policies of the Biden years. State lawmakers have introduced legislation to change how electricity companies can structure their rates to better benefit economic development opportunities.

Buddy Hasten, CEO of the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas, sat down recently with Talk Business & Politics Editor-in-Chief Roby Brock to discuss the current and future energy landscape. ECA and its 17 member-owners are electric distribution cooperatives serving approximately 1.2 million Arkansans.

Roby Brock: Let’s begin with what is happening at the federal level. We have a shift in philosophy of what needs to happen with energy policy in America from the Biden administration to the Trump administration. What excites you the most?

Buddy Hasten: I think what excites me the most is getting a focus back to affordability and reliability. When you look at the co-ops, our mission statement is ‘affordable, reliable, responsible.’ I think the government has been very focused on the ‘responsible’ piece for the better part of a decade or more. The fixation or the focus has been on carbon in that responsible piece. I think we were so focused on that people took their eye off the ball on ‘reliability and affordability.’ And as America has seen from these cold winter storms, rolling blackouts and high prices, there’s definitely needed to be a shift or a balance in focus. So I think what excites me the most is I see this current administration moving the focus more to a balanced approach where it’s not a complete, shift of focus away from responsibility, but factoring in affordability and reliability.

Brock: What does reliability mean to you? Does that mean upgrades to the infrastructure in this country? Does it mean putting more power online?

Hasten: When you get hurricanes and major storms, there’s going to be a reliability issue. But I think the bigger challenge that’s been out there is just lack of available power. In these winter storms, the fact that we had to have rolling blackouts just because there wasn’t enough generation to supply the load. To me, the biggest focus is about the generation sources. Yes, we still need to do more infrastructure investment and upgrade transmission. That’s all part of it. But the other piece of it is America is really seeing an unprecedented demand for electricity.

For instance at the Electric Co-ops, our peak load during one of these really cold winter events is about 3,600 megawatts. When you look at how much economic development opportunity there is, I probably have that much sitting on my desk for new load that wants to come to Arkansas. Yet right now, facing two coal plants that are closing and having to replace that with natural gas plants, that transition right there is pretty challenging. So it’s a really big challenge to say, how do you bring enough power online to attract new businesses or new growth, right?

Brock: Some of the driver of those new projects that you’re talking about are data centers, which are very energy consumptive. And any kind of new industrial plant is going to obviously need more capacity too. How do you build that capacity? You can’t build a power plant or enough generation overnight. These are years in the planning process and they cost a lot of money too. What’s the solution?

Hasten: You’re right, it takes about five years from the planning phase until a power plant is online and most of these economic development opportunities, they want to get going faster than five years. You can build a data center in about two years and it takes about five years to build a power plant. So I’d say it’s a big challenge. We are already breaking ground on one power plant. Earlier last year in October, we did a groundbreaking up at Fitzhugh (Franklin County). We have plans to add another (natural) gas-powered plant in 2028 in Texas. And then, we’ll be doing one here in Arkansas. The location hasn’t been announced yet, but it’ll be much larger than the one in Texas.

I think that will replace the coal power that we’re losing and give us a little bit more extra to serve load. But it in no way addresses that really large demand, so we’ve got more work to do. I would tell you that the supply chains in the world are really full right now because everyone’s trying to do the same thing. So if you call a gas turbine manufacturer right now, you’re probably going to get in a line that’s three or four or five years long. It’s a big challenge… I see the current administration, they see that challenge, they see the hurdles that utilities, power providers are facing to turn on all this load. And I’m just very encouraged that they’re going to work to help us find solutions to get this done faster.

Brock: What are you keeping your eye on at the state legislature? There have been bills that have been filed that deal with electricity and regulation. There are some that are being talked about that haven’t been filed yet. What do you think the state legislature can do now that they’re in session?

Hasten: If I was to say what I’ve heard out of the state legislature, it is a theme of affordability and reliability. They’re very much in step with what I think is happening at the federal level. So there are bills protecting the power plants that we do have, right? That’s encouraging to me that the state legislature sees the value of these assets for the state. I think there’s a new piece of legislation that’s, that’s going to get filed that really talks to the previous issue and that is the large loads in economic development and how you develop the power plants or the infrastructure to serve that load.

It really comes down to a choice. If you don’t have any excess power in your state to offer for economic development, then that economic development will go somewhere else. So it is a balancing act. If the state of Arkansas wants that economic development, then we’ve got to create pathways where we can serve that load. I think there is legislation coming out that’s going to look at streamlining the permitting process, maybe shortening some of the regulatory timelines, and making it a little bit easier for utilities from a financial perspective to be able to invest in those power plants.

You can watch Hasten’s full interview in the video below.