Okay, ready for this (it's a strange one). Under the hood, it's working correctly, but the UI is failing to give the player the feedback they need.
Even though the player has the tech to see and recognize the Aluminum, the City-State has not yet tech'd up to Electricity to be able to "hook it up". We can see this by looking at the AI log, but this information is not front-facing in any way unfortunately.
Thanks for catching this, we'll look to make this apparent to the player.
Wow i cant believe this hasnt been fixed.
Don't even get me started on coal. Effing coal. My denouncing neighbor has 44. I have three. After I use a GG.