Michael Dekker
Tulsa World Business Reporter
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Daniel Shular
Tulsa World Photojournalist
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With planned AI data centers in the Tulsa area requiring the amount of power entire cities would use, the need for additional electrical workers and infrastructure has never been greater.
“They’ve been telling us for the last 10 or 11 years that this was coming, that we’re going to run out of electricians, … and now it’s here — it’s here,” said Ted Jenkins, training director at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a Tulsa-based union that offers a five-year apprenticeship with pay.
It is home for the Tulsa Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee program in north Tulsa.
Jenkins was among several people who spoke during Google’s announcement in Pryor in August that it is making a further $9 billion investment in Oklahoma, which includes plans for a new data center in Stillwater and improvements to Google’s existing complex at MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor.
Gov. Kevin Stitt told the Tulsa World that Google’s announcement is the largest private investment in state history.
Officials at the event said Google is planning to fund a program through the electrical training ALLIANCE, or etA, to develop Oklahoma’s labor force in supporting new energy infrastructure, particularly electrical workers.
Jenkins, director of the Joint Apprentice Training Committee for etA, said Google’s support for the training of new electrical workers will help with an “epidemic” of them retiring or shifting careers. He said the country is losing more than 73,000 such workers a year.
“We must invest in recruitment and training now,” he said.
In an interview last week, he said Google will help pay for books and other costs for people interested in becoming commercial electricians.
He said that through his union, those who decide to enter the program, after passing a reading comprehension and an “algebraic function” test, are paid about $20 an hour and get partial health benefits.
Those benefits rise as apprentices move through the five-year program, he said, with full health benefits by the second year.
Apprentices require 8,000 hours of on-the-job experience — which can be achieved in the five-year program — before they can take a state test that will allow them to become electrical journeymen. As such, they can easily make six figures annually, Jenkins said.
The total cost over that five-year period is currently about $3,500 for apprentices, Jenkins said. He pointed out that the cost is relatively low compared to the cost of college and that apprentices are also being paid much more than a living wage while learning the trade.
In August, at a Tulsa Regional Chamber event, Doug Mackenzie, senior vice president of Chicago-based JLL, a real estate and investment management company with annual revenue of $23.4 billion, said that in the next few years, the Tulsa region, in terms of data center demand alone, may require an additional 15 to 20 gigawatts of electricity.
“That’s (equivalent to) 15 to 20 nuclear power plants,” he said. “What’s going to come is going to be based on the utilities’ grid to keep up with that. So it will be a supply constraint.”
He added that with the addition of data centers, not just in the Tulsa area but throughout the country, there will be a tremendous demand for electricians and HVAC contractors.
“There’s such a shortage of those skills that there are massive spikes in the annual compensation,” he said.
He said that is already happening in places such as Columbus, Ohio, where electricians are making $300,000 to $400,000 per year and HVAC contractors are getting upward of $175,000 per year.
“And that’s straight out of school,” Matt Jackson, executive managing director of JLL said at the chamber event. JLL operates in more than 80 countries.
Jenkins said that while those figures may not initially be as high for electrical journeymen in Oklahoma — some, with working overtime and Saturdays and Sundays — can make $2,000 per week. Over 50 weeks, that translates to $100,000 per year.
He said there will be a need for hundreds of commercial electricians in the next few years.
Utilities and infrastructure
Dan Sullivan is president and chief executive officer of the Grand River Dam Authority, a state-administered utility that provides power and water for parts of northeastern Oklahoma. It supplies wholesale electricity to 15 Oklahoma public (city and county) communities, which then resell the power to more than 82,000 customers.
Sullivan said infrastructure needs are something the GRDA’s board and executive officials regularly discuss. He said large companies such as Google agree to pay for additional infrastructure.
“Because of the size of the (additional electric) loads, … you’re talking about the need for entire cities,” he said. “We work with a lot of companies, and they agree to support many of those costs. Google has done just that,” he said.
Asked about the ratio of pay by private companies such as Google for infrastructure, Sullivan said it depends on the company, the scope of the project, the location and other factors.
He said that for GRDA, there is a big need for additional electrical lineman and for workers who build data centers.
“We are blessed in Oklahoma with a great career tech system to help deal with that,” he said.
Electricians, he said, are a critical need “not only in Oklahoma but across the U.S.”
The Public Service Company of Oklahoma, which provides power for most of the Tulsa metro, has about 575,000 customers in eastern and southwestern Oklahoma, including McAlester and Lawton.
While not addressing the infrastructure needs of planned data centers, PSO sent the following statement to the Tulsa World:
“PSO is prepared to provide power to serve large projects thanks to a well-balanced mix of generation sources and sufficient capacity on our transmission and distribution systems. When working on any type of new customer project, PSO develops solutions to strengthen the grid for the benefit of all customers. We will continue to support the economic development efforts of our state and community partners.”
Meanwhile, PSO wants to add $10 to customer bills to increase capacity for unidentified “large load” customers, as reported by the Tulsa World on Wednesday.
The state’s other big electrical utility, OG&E, has about 900,000 customers in central Oklahoma, including the Oklahoma City metro, and western Arkansas.
The company said in a statement to the Tulsa World:
“Oklahoma is growing and OG&E will continue to provide reliable and safe electricity at some of the lowest rates in the country. Data centers represent a unique opportunity for economic growth for many communities in Oklahoma and OG&E will continue to focus on affordability for all our customers as we meet the growing energy demands of our region.
“OG&E is in discussions regarding a number of data center projects, although none are solidified at this time. We will do everything in our power to protect residential customers from rate increases related to data center development.”
Google opened its second-largest data center in the world at MidAmerica Industrial Park in 2007. The property taxes from that project have resulted in “the Google effect“ for Pryor Public Schools, negating the district’s need for state education funding.
In addition to Google’s new planned data center in Stillwater, another — perhaps unrelated — data center is planned in Tulsa County near Owasso.
The company behind that project has not been made public, but an attorney representing Beale Infrastructure acknowledged that it likely would be one of four tech giants: Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Meta.
Sullivan said additional data centers are under discussion in Claremore and in Pryor. Details of those projects could not be confirmed last week.
In addition, a $4 billion aluminum production plant is planned for the Tulsa Port of Inola.
The plant is expected to require “at least” 600 to 800 megawatts of electricity, said Andrew Ralston, director of economic development for Tulsa Ports. He spoke in August at a Rotary Club of Tulsa meeting.
A megawatt is the electrical energy required to power 400 to 900 homes a year, depending on the efficiency of the home, its size and other factors.
That means the plant would require the yearly energy of between 240,000 and 720,000 homes.
Asked by a Rotary Club audience member whether PSO has the ability to provide such a power need for the aluminum plant, Ralston said he could not speak for PSO but alluded to the utility’s infrastructure: “The question is not whether the power can be available and provided — it’s how quickly the power can be available and provided.”
business@tulsaworld.com
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Michael Dekker
Tulsa World Business Reporter
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Daniel Shular
Tulsa World Photojournalist
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