Are AI data centers raising your electric bill? Some, and more is likely on the way. Over the past year the price of household electricity rose 4.4%, faster than prices overall (3.7%). Since September 2021, electricity prices are up about 35% in plain dollars, or about 10% after inflation.

Data centers aren’t the only reason. Utilities are also paying more for natural gas, storm and wildfire repairs and replacing old equipment, according to Fortune’s reporting on rate requests.

And when Rutgers researchers matched household bills from 2014 to 2024 with nearby data centers, their estimates ranged from about $2 less to $2 more a month, none clearly different from zero. They warned that rising wholesale costs in some regions haven’t reached those bills yet. That’s where the pressure is building: in regions packed with data centers, and in grid costs that show up on bills a year or more later.

Are electricity prices unusually high right now?

They’re higher than usual, but not at a record. After inflation, electricity cost more than today in only about a quarter of the months since 1978, mostly in the 1980s. Here is how far below its 1984 record the inflation-adjusted price has been ever since:

After inflation, electricity is still about 14% below its 1984 record.

Source: BLS, FRED, MKViz.

Power was most expensive in real terms in the mid-1980s, after the oil shocks and as costly new nuclear plants were added to utility rates. It was cheapest in the early 2000s. Today’s price, after inflation, is still about 14% below that 1984 peak.

How much power do data centers use?

Data centers use a small but fast-growing share of the nation’s power. A report for the Department of Energy found that data centers used about 4% of US electricity in 2023 and could use between 6.7% and 12% by 2028:

Data centers’ share of US power could nearly triple by 2028 in the high scenario.

Source: US Department of Energy, MKViz.

The high end is a scenario, not a forecast. Still, even the low end means their share rising from about 4% to almost 7% between 2023 and 2028.

Why could data centers raise your bill?

Mostly through the cost of building the grid that data centers need. When a utility needs more power plants and power lines, those costs are usually spread across all customers.

The clearest example is PJM, the grid that serves 13 states and Washington, D.C., from New Jersey to Illinois. Its auctions for future power capacity have set record prices three times in a row, driven largely by new data-center demand.

PJM’s price for securing future power jumped about ninefold in one auction.

PJM capacity price	Per megawatt of power, per day
Year starting June 2024	$28.92
Year starting June 2025	$269.92

Source: Rutgers, PJM.

PJM estimated that the auction covering June 2026 through May 2027, whose costs are starting to show up on bills now, could raise some customers’ bills by about 1.5% to 5%. So how does a data center far from your house end up on your bill?

Data-center demand shows up on household bills through grid costs, with a delay.

Data centers ask the grid for much more power

The grid pays more to secure future power plants

Utilities pass those costs and new power lines into rates

Your bill rises when that future year arrives, often a year or more later

Source: PJM, Utility Dive, MKViz.

That’s why the national numbers can look calm while some households see bigger jumps. Where you live, and how your state splits these costs between data centers and everyone else, matters more than the national average.

Are prices rising faster where data centers cluster?

So far they are, though data centers aren’t the only reason. Using the Energy Information Administration’s state data, we compared each state’s average household electricity price over the latest year with the year before. In the eight places that sit almost entirely inside the PJM grid, the typical increase was about 12%. In the rest of the country it was about 6%:

Household power prices rose about twice as fast in PJM states as elsewhere.

Source: EIA, MKViz.

Washington, D.C., led at about 20%. New Jersey rose about 12%, and Virginia, whose northern suburbs hold the world’s biggest cluster of data centers, rose about 12%.

Not every PJM state jumped: Delaware was up about 6% and West Virginia only about 1%.

This lines up with the timing of PJM’s record capacity prices, but it doesn’t prove data centers are the only cause. Prices also rose quickly in some states outside PJM, such as New Hampshire, New York and Washington.

What I watch on my own bill

I don’t own utility or data-center stocks, though my Nasdaq-100 fund holds the big tech companies building these centers. For me, investing and paying bills are separate ledgers, and buying a power stock to offset a few dollars a month isn’t a real hedge. Who pays for the new grid is a policy question. If states make data-center owners pay more of that cost, it’s also a risk for the companies building them.

I read the bill in three parts: how much power I used, the price per kilowatt-hour, and the line items for extra charges and adjustments. It’s the only way I can tell whether a higher bill came from using more power or from a higher rate. Automatic payments make small, steady increases easy to miss.

I also keep two numbers in mind: about how many kilowatt-hours I use in a month, and what a 1-cent rise in the rate would cost me. At 900 kilowatt-hours a month, a 1-cent rise is about $9 a month. With those numbers, a headline about rising rates turns into a dollar amount I can plan around.

If you’re in a PJM state, the place where this gets decided is your state utility commission. Rate cases there are open to public comment, renters included, and they decide how much of the new grid’s cost lands on households.

Sources

Method: We took the Bureau of Labor Statistics' consumer price index for household electricity since 1978, divided it by the overall consumer price index to remove general inflation, and measured where the latest month sits among all months and how it changed since 2020. For the state comparison we used EIA's monthly average residential price for each state and compared the latest 12 months (through August 2026) with the 12 before; core PJM states are those lying almost entirely inside that grid. Data: BLS, FRED, EIA.

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