At the Energy Future Forum 2026 presented by RealClearPolitics, Peter Bryant and Chris Womack, Chairman, President and CEO of Southern Company, examine how the US electricity system confronts the most demanding expansion challenge in its history, and what it will take to maintain the cost advantage that underpins American competitiveness.
Peter opens with the scale of the task: the US needs to double electricity generation over the next 20 to 30 years, against five-year waits for transformers and gas turbines, a construction labour shortage, and the looming critical minerals famine that could constrain the availability and cost of the components energy expansion depends on most. At the Edison Electric Institute Leadership Conference, Safra Katz, CEO of Oracle, challenged the assembled utilities directly: she needed them to move as fast as the technology industry. The fastest-moving sector in the world was calling out one of the slowest to change its pace, because the US AI race cannot be won without the electricity to power it.
Womack pushes back on the slow-mover characterisation. The US electricity sector represents roughly 5% of a $32 trillion GDP – “the first 5%,” as he puts it, without which the rest of the economy cannot function. Last year, 52 gigawatts of new capacity were built across the country. Eighty gigawatts are under construction. A further 115 gigawatts are permitted. Southern Company, serving nine million customers across a vertically integrated model from generation to distribution, is doubling its generation footprint, backed by an $81 billion capital plan over the next five years.
Maintaining affordability for existing customers runs as a central tension throughout the conversation, and it bears directly on the investor-owned utility model. Hyperscalers pay full cost for the reliability they require; no cross-subsidisation of existing customers. Base rate freezes in Georgia run to 2028 and in Alabama to 2029, and Womack calculates that hyperscaler load, priced at full freight, could reduce customer bills by close to $2 billion across the rest of the decade. But the rising costs of capital and persistent supply chain pressures create real strain on the investor-owned utility model. Maintaining Southern’s energy cost position – currently well below the national average – demands constant downward pressure on operating costs, including deploying AI across the company’s own processes.
Scale, Womack argues, will be a defining differentiator as demand grows. Companies without the balance sheet, supplier relationships, and financial capacity to execute at this pace will find themselves at a structural disadvantage. The $26.5 billion DOE loan – the largest in the department’s history – is expected to deliver approximately $7 billion in savings to customers over its life and illustrates the de-risking role federal support can play in enabling the capital commitments required.
On nuclear, Womack argues the country needs to commit to building at least 10 AP1000 units by mid-2026 for delivery by the mid-2030s. AP1000s are running at capacity factors above 90%, making them expensive to build but cheap to run. Small modular reactors have potential but still need engineering work to confirm they are, in practice, smaller and cheaper. Behind-the-meter solutions can serve interim power needs for data centres but are not a long-term substitute for the grid. Distributed generation that cannot connect risks leaving electrons stranded: Southern Company is scaling battery storage from 65 megawatts today to 6,500 megawatts by 2030 and building 1,000 miles of new transmission alongside it.
No matter the prevailing affordability, scale and complexity factors, “there will be power,” Womack tells the audience.
Watch the whole conversation here.
