Electricity prices & the data-center energy surge
What power actually costs across the US — and how the AI data-center boom is bending national electricity demand. We report the figures the public data supports, and flag where it doesn’t.
How much electricity do data centers use?
Growth is driven largely by AI compute — data centers rose from under 2% of US electricity a decade ago to 4.4% in 2023, and are projected to reach 6.7–12% by 2028.
There is no public federal dataset of individual data-center locations or loads — EIA-860 tracks power generators, not large loads — so this reports the national aggregate, not per-site figures.
In New England, data-center load is currently negligible — ISO-NE's 2026 large-load forecast counts only ~285 MW of projects in formal study, and regional demand growth is driven by heating and transport electrification, not data centers. ISO-NE ↗
National figures: LBNL 2024 U.S. Data Center Energy Usage Report.
Where electricity prices are rising fastest
Residential retail price change since 2019, by state — the demand surge shows up first in the bill.
Residential electricity prices by state (April 2026)
Average residential retail price, most expensive first. Open a state for its full cost trend alongside its outage reliability.
Prices from the US EIA (Form 861 retail sales), in cents per kilowatt-hour.