Docket 33709 does not decide whether Project Red Clay gets built. It decides something narrower and still important: how the Alabama Public Service Commission reviews the electric-service contract behind any large-load data center, this one included, once that contract exists. Sixteen public filings landed by the initial deadline. We read the two that matter most.
Start with how a contract gets approved today. Since an April 1996 order, Alabama Power’s large-load contracts have been reviewed by Commission staff, not the commissioners themselves. Under that rule, a contract is deemed approved after ten days unless the Commission expressly steps in to disapprove it. No vote required. The state’s own Attorney General filed comments calling that mechanism "ultra vires," arguing the elected and appointed commissioners "must actively participate in the decisions of the commission by voting on large load contracts," and noting that "it does not appear that the Alabama PSC has ever had an audit of its FCR contracts."
Next, what a redacted contract actually looks like once it reaches the state record. The Southern Environmental Law Center pointed to a real one: Alabama Power’s contract with a Nebius affiliate for a Birmingham-area data center. The company’s stated reason for redacting was protecting confidential information, but SELC found the redactions went further than that: "even the contract capacity is redacted when Nebius has publicly stated it is seeking to operate a 300 MW data center." The contract length, its effective date, every pricing term, and the financial security terms are also blacked out.
Here is the part worth understanding before this project’s own contract ever surfaces: individual large-load contracts are not filed inside Docket 33709 at all. Each gets its own separate docket, in a "D-" numbered series. The Nebius contract is D-7843. A companion contract is D-7842. A full-text search of the entire PSC filing system, run twice this month, found no filing anywhere mentioning Lowndes County, Sandstone Cliffs, Project Red Clay, or Cloverleaf. That is not evidence nothing is happening. It is evidence that when something does happen, it will not show up here, it will show up as its own D-#### docket, and nobody will be watching unless they know to look.
Reply comments are the last opportunity in this proceeding, due August 21. Participating does not require a lawyer, a fee, or formal intervention as a party.1234567