Is your electric bill going up? AI is partly to blame

Is your electric bill going up? AI is part of the reason.

Since February 2020, U.S. electricity prices have jumped about 40%. Before that, power prices barely moved for nearly two decades. The jump we are seeing now is the largest in a generation.

So why are bills getting so high? Demand for power is rising fast. More homes and businesses are using electricity for everything from heating to electric cars. And now, data centers built for artificial intelligence are driving demand even higher.

Utilities are trying to keep up by replacing old power plants and upgrading power lines. These upgrades take time, are expensive, and customers often end up covering part of the cost.

For people on fixed incomes, it is becoming harder to keep the lights on. A 71-year-old in Florida told reporters her electric bills now run between $200 and $300 a month. She said, “When you’re on a fixed income, you feel it.”

Across the country, utilities say they will spend more than $1 trillion over the next five years to expand generation and strengthen the grid. The question is, who pays for it?

AI data centers use massive amounts of power. They should be paying the full cost of the electricity and grid upgrades they require. In states like Virginia, Oregon, and Georgia, lawmakers and regulators have offered discounted electricity rates or incentives to attract them. The problem is that these special deals don’t always cover the true cost of serving such large facilities. When that happens, the utility spreads the leftover costs across everyone else. That means regular households can end up paying more.

And it is already happening. Virginia’s own audit found that data center costs could raise residential bills by $14 to $37 per month. In Oregon, consumer groups say that data center rate deals have played a role in regular customers seeing bill increases as high as 50% over four years.

Residential users already pay higher rates than large commercial users. If this continues, power bills could keep rising even faster.

So how do we fix it?

We need fair pricing that makes big power users pay what they owe. We need faster investment in clean energy and storage, so growth doesn’t depend on fossil fuels. And we need policies that keep the grid reliable without punishing regular households.

Electricity costs affect everyone. If we want a fair and stable grid, we need to make sure the clean energy transition benefits everyone, not just a few companies.

Have you noticed your bill going up? What changes do you think would make the system fairer?

https://www.npr.org/2025/11/06/nx-s1-5597971/electricity-bills-utilities-ai