Data Centers Fuel Surge in U.S. Electricity Prices

Electricity prices in the United States rose by nearly 7% year-over-year in 2025, with rates expected to continue climbing as power demand from artificial intelligence data centers ramps up.

The U.S. Department of Energy also projects that data centers will consume up to 12% of the country’s electricity by 2028. And, over the next decade, data centers will account for a whopping 40% of electricity demand growth, and according to a Goldman Sachs report cited by CNBC News.

That will lead to a precarious balance between consumer and data center demand, with household electricity prices expected to rise by another 6% through 2027. The greatest overall price rises are likely to be in California, the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, as utilities pass the costs of adding infrastructure to meet that growing demand on to American households.

Read More: AI’s Rapid Rise Is Outpacing Our Infrastructure

A 2025 analysis from Bloomberg drew similar conclusions, estimating that the cost of electricity for a single month in areas near data centers has ballooned by as much as 267% over the last five years. Wholesale electricity costs have also more than doubled since 2020 in some U.S. markets, with more than 70% of price increases found within 50 miles of so-called data center “hot spots.”

A previous report from Goldman Sachs predicted that AI will drive a 160% increase in data center power demand by 2030, while total power demand in the U.S. — which has been largely flat for the last decade — is expected to rise by as much as 2.4% between 2022 and 2030.