Posted on 10/27/2025 7:10:59 PM PDT by DoodleBob
The rapid rollout of power-hungry AI data centers could be straining the US energy grid and causing utility bills to spike – and prices could get worse in the coming months, according to economists.
Americans spent 3.6% more on electricity and gas in the third quarter of this year than they did during the same time last year, according to a study led by Bank of America economist David Tinsley.
Taking a longer view, electricity prices rose 5.1% over the past 12 months through September, while gas service went up a whopping 11.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.
That came as the feds and state governments have been offering financial incentives for companies to build data centers. There are over 4,000 such sites throughout the US today, according to datacentermap.com, though there is no official count.
“The rising demand for electricity generation capacity and grid investments, due in part to the build-out of data centers, appears to be placing more upward pressure on bills,” stated the Bank of America report, which was released last week.
When electrical grids get enhanced to accommodate increased power demands from new data centers, at least some of the cost appears to get passed on to consumers, the report explained.
On top of that, the increased use of electric vehicles has added to electricity demand, helping to keep prices high, according to the study.
More price hikes could be in store this winter.
“Consumers may again feel the pressure on their utility bills in the coming months, particularly if the winter is a cold one,” BofA’s report warned.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Indiana is getting $15 billion in Big Tech investment. Residents don't want to foot the energy bill.
and
A humming annoyance or jobs boom? Life next to 199 data centres
It is not uncommon for new power generation capacity to be covered by consumers. But it’s wrong for rate payers to cover private data centers’ electric power capacity needs.
We are trying to fight them in SE Michigan. The Democrats made fighting them almost impossible. I don’t know why they cannot go into cities rather than use up farm country
Bkmk
That’s an excellent point - anyone in the utility business in the last 40 years could tell you that the environmentalists constrained capacity additions in this country. They were encouraging the concept of “negawatts” - negative watts or capacity not needed due to sometimes dubious conservation plans. By limiting capacity, they just increased the speed with which we would hit practical limits for generation and transmission.
The best example of this may be Microsoft’s purchase of Unit 1 at Three Mile Island. It’s the fastest way to get that much power. The last nuclear plant built in the US took 14 years to build and bankrupted Westinghouse in the process.
I take Trump at his word when he says we will back AI at all costs, and that will require significant accelerated capacity additions and transmission construction. It will require the suspension of the mindset of regulators who captured the industry in the last 30 years. Let’s get going!
I don’t mind pulling out of mothballs decommissioned power generation capacity that covers all rate payers.
And the demonization of coal certainly drove up costs.
But if Microsoft or AWS build a massive data center, and if the costs of the dedicated power generation capacity for these private data centers is borne by the average rate payers, something seems wrong.
The scumbags are after our water mostly for cooling, not so easy in metro areas. This is eerily similar to the Chicom EV area near here until the project was cancelled after a bunch of land was torn up. Speaking of EV manufacturing falling into quicksand don’t be surprised when these ‘data centers’ do the same thing, rather than use the supply and demand methodology these ‘centers’ the supply will outdo the demand and we’ll end up paying for it.
The reason they started building those data centers in Loudoun County, VA was because there was a lot of open land, it’s right next to a main high tension power line, there are a lot of high tech companies like AOL, Raytheon etc there, and it’s within short commutes to Dulles and DC.
Then everyone wanted to build a data center there, and now Dominion Power wants to build a new line there, which, of course, is opposed by all those rich people there who make all their money off the government.
That's never defined, nor how it will help the average US citizen. These data centers can be for porn, meta goggles, games or memes. None of that is a especially wonderful thing for society and culture.
We are in another unique situation, much like pharmaceuticals, where large amounts of public funding goes into these projects, yet the citizen still has to pay again for the product.
Not only that, but its not merely restricted for Americans, but for other countries, where they don't lose their farmland or are subject to higher electricity costs for the product.
Monroe County does NOT have enough water for the thieves to use. With the drought, people have wells drying up as it is. They can park their crap in an almost empty mall lot near Detroit and pay for city water. (Like Fairlane)
Part of the problem is our Democrat legislature making the keeping of those entities out of our farmlands almost impossible. IMO, it is Gretchen’s revenge for us voting red.
Ever notice that we all have energy efficient appliances and light bulbs but our electric bills just keep increasing?
I thought the whole reason for the new improved products was to reduce the amount of energy consumption resulting in lower cost. Oddly that hasn’t happened.
“That’s never defined, nor how it will help the average US citizen”
AI is needed for the surveillance state, it is the only use for AI aside from the entertainment. the are have this other problem..
The dark side of AI monetization
https://www.computerworld.com/article/4036568/the-dark-side-of-ai-monetization.html
Global bean counters are struggling to find value for money in anything AI and that is a big, big problem
Elephant in the room that this article doesn’t mention is renewable energy which, when integrated in large scale to the grid, forces huge investments in storage (batteries), the construction of single cycle gas (45 percent efficient) instead of combined cycle (65 percent efficient) as backup, doesn’t work in the winter or at night, sits there rusting and decaying the rest of the time, has to be replaced after 12 years instead of the promised 25 years, blights the landscape, and the first 3 years of output simply replaces the fossil fuel energy used to build it, reduces the capacity utilization rate of the backup plants so in their 40 year life they produce only 50 percent of their actual capacity and then have to be rebuilt, results in strip mining of Indonesian rain forests in search of nickel...
One way AI might help somewhat with the problem of intermittent but cheap solar electricity is that AI processing can be moved far away to where the electricity is currently cheapest in the world. It's possibly the most mobile energy consumer ever invented.
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