The AI explosion means millions are paying more for electricity

The Washington Post ^ | 6:00 a.m. EDT July 27, 2025 | Peter Whoriskey

[BenLurkin]

Is this where people get hooked up to the computers like batteries?

[antidemoncrat]

So are the climate change nimrods protesting that AI growth will increase the earth’s temp substantially because of the increased power required for it and casting themselves down the cooling towers at those power plants to prove their point?

[mikey_hates_everything]

I believe Virginia law requires infrastructure costs to be spread among all customers. Except that the infrastructure improvements are being driven by the data centers which, on top of NOT having to cover more of the costs due to THEIR demand, they also get bulk electric rates. Some system we got...

[linMcHlp]

I currently figure, because of the energy - heat and supply - problems, AI should only be powered by "green energy." Otherwise, the AI frenzy will continue until it and many related activities slam into a wall.

[ifinnegan]

Washington Compost always lies and has an agenda.

[McGruff]

I asked Grok: Why does AI require so much electricity?

AI requires significant electricity due to the immense computational power needed for training and running large models. Training involves processing vast datasets through complex neural networks, often on specialized hardware like GPUs or TPUs, which are power-hungry. For example, training a single large language model can emit as much CO2 as a transatlantic flight, with data centers consuming hundreds of megawatts. Inference—using the model for tasks like answering queries—also demands constant computation, especially for real-time applications. Cooling systems for these data centers add to the energy load. As AI models grow larger and more widespread, their energy consumption scales, often outpacing efficiency gains.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Washington Compost always lies and has an agenda.

[21twelve]

“Cooling systems for these data centers add to the energy load.”

There have also been issues with nearby property water wells being less productive, as well as municipal water costs increasing.

[brookwood]

“The AI explosion means millions are paying more for electricity”
Every word of this article is a lie. Connecticut now has .05 kwh charge for renewable energy, which pays people who have solar panels for the electricity they generate when it is not needed. We buy it anyway. They have a .04 charge which goes to pay the electric bills of people who claim they don’t have any money. This charge was introduced as a pandemic measure, but when the pandemic ended, they kept the charge. Makes my blood boil that the media can lie, lie, lie and no one calls them out. 35 percent of all electric bills in CT go for renewables and welfare. AI has nothing to do with it.

[Vision]

Electric cars are likely the bigger problem now.

[TheDon]

An exception should be made for AI data centers.

They must supply their own power.

[econjack]

It's going to get worse before it gets better, as people discover more ways to use AI. More and more books are showing students how to use AI to get better grades, and some are not ethical. (Look for books that see AI as a tool to augment your efforts, rather than replace them, like Better Grades Using AI.) Places that already face rolling brownouts (e.g., CA and TX) because of misplaced energy policies might end up paying a steep price for those green energy policies.

[McGruff]

I can see a scenario where AI shutdowns the power grid to keep itself running.

[bray]

Electrical rates have gone up due to the manmade weather change fraud.

[catnipman]

“The AI explosion means millions are paying more for electricity”

so insane power price increases have nothing to do with shutting down coal plants across the nation and TRYING to replace with ridiculously expensive and unreliable windmills and solar-absorbers ...

[George from New England]

Its not AI, its the greenie failure

[Galatians513]

They are reopening Iowa’s only nuke plant (and doubling its capacity) to power 5 new data centers in Cedar Rapids. Supposedly they are tapping a deeper aquafer than we use. Hopefully our wells won’t be affected.

[plain talk]

Probably a combination of AI data centers supplying their own power and AI getting power from the grid.

Either way over the long term I suspect most if not all people will be affected by AI one way or the other. Of course over the long term we will all be dead.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It’s the “green” windmills and solar cells driving up power prices. Kill your supply and replace it with intermittent, unreliable wind and solar backed with federal subsidies and you get high priced power.

But, wait! There’s even more!! You can look forward to 800 hours of outage every year and you’ll be begging for power at any price. That’s coming soon in several regions of the USA.

There are 8,760 hours in a year. That means your power will be off over two hours per day year on average every day of the year.