Always On Energy Research’s policy analyst, Sarah Montalbano, joined WERC Alabama’s Morning News to talk data centers and how states like Alabama can welcome the economic opportunity without sticking residential ratepayers with the bill. The conversation covered bring-your-own-power frameworks, consumer-regulated electricity, and why market-friendly policy beats blunt instruments like moratoriums. If private capital is going […]

Always On’s Energy Policy Analyst, Sarah Montalbano, joined Fox 5 Live Zone with Guy Lambert on April 21, 2026, to unpack Governor Abigail Spanberger’s “Consumers First” framework, and why the slogan doesn’t match the policy. While data centers are a growing concern, Spanberger is scapegoating them to distract from the policies actually driving Virginia bills […]

Indiana’s electric grid is being asked to do a lot at once. Generation grew by more than 13 percent in 2025, the fastest jump of any state in the Midwest. Coal ran harder to meet that demand even as the national coal fleet shrank. Retail electricity prices climbed 10.5 percent in a single year. Even […]

Turn off your lights, shrink your bill. That’s the pitch utilities and efficiency advocates have sold for decades. Mitch Rolling, co-founder and director of research of Always On Energy Research, told KXEL’s Jeff Stein on News Talk that the math behind that is broken. On a grid increasingly built around wind, solar, and battery resources […]

by Isaac Orr NextEra Energy Resources is descending upon my home county of Waupaca, Wisconsin, seeking to build a 300- to 375-megawatt (MW) solar facility called the Cloverleaf Solar Project. The project would be located on 1,500 acres near Clintonville, Wisconsin. You’d be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Clintonville, or aren’t sure how to pronounce […]

Sarah Montalbano In 2018, Xcel Energy, an investor-owned utility serving millions of customers across eight states, was the first U.S. utility to pledge to deliver 100% carbon-free electricity by 2050. Eight years later, Xcel is pleading with Colorado regulators to let it continue running its coal plants until 2030. What happened to “steel for fuel,” […]