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Acting Under Secretary Fitzsimmons Describes the Energy Department's Largest Loan, $26 Billion for Georgia and Alabama Power

May 1, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:05:21

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Acting Under Secretary of Energy Alex Fitzsimmons, who also directs the department’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response, joined the Scott Jennings Show after a trip to Georgia, in the interview the Department of Energy uploaded. Fitzsimmons said he had traveled to Heard County, Georgia, with Deputy Secretary James Danly to announce the groundbreaking of a project converting a former coal plant — shut down under the previous administration — into a 1,500-megawatt natural gas plant with battery storage, as he described the site.

He said the project is part of a $26 billion loan package closed by the department’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing with Georgia Power and Alabama Power, which he called the single largest loan package in the history of the federal government outside the financial crisis, as he characterized it. The package will deliver more than 16 gigawatts of new and incremental generation across the two states — 6 gigawatts of nuclear, 5.5 gigawatts of natural gas, 3.5 gigawatts of battery storage and a gigawatt of hydro, plus 1,300 miles of transmission lines — and will save Georgia and Alabama ratepayers $7 billion over the life of the loan, as he stated the figures.

Fitzsimmons explained that the interest savings from the low-cost federal loan must by law be passed to ratepayers as lower energy costs, and that the borrowers’ strong balance sheets make the loan low-risk for taxpayers, as he presented the structure. He said the Energy Department is now the largest energy lender in the United States under this administration, that other utilities are seeking similar deals, and that the pipeline of projects follows the President’s ratepayer protection pledge, under which large power users agreed to pay their own generation and network costs so residential ratepayers are held harmless, as he described the pledge.

Why it matters

A subordinate Energy official carries this announcement rather than the Secretary, but the substance is departmental and specific — the largest loan in department history, itemized by technology, with a statutory pass-through of savings to ratepayers as its selling point.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the $26 billion Georgia Power and Alabama Power loan package as Fitzsimmons stated it on May 1, 2026 — more than 16 gigawatts of generation and $7 billion in projected ratepayer savings — flagged for the scoreboard editor; no verdict is entered here.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Acting Under Secretary Alex Fitzsimmons Joins The Scott Jennings Show - May 1, 2026”, 2026-05-01 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-05-01). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.