AI Is Booming. So Are Household Electricity Bills.
Demand from data centers is straining America’s biggest energy grid, and consumers are paying a steep price.
It’s getting harder to keep the lights on.
Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Silicon Valley, powerful as it is, should be wary of ticking off 67 million Americans.PJM Interconnection is a regional transmission organization that manages the biggest electricity grid in the US, covering all or part of 13 Midwestern and mid-Atlantic states plus the District of Columbia. In all but four of those states, plus DC, average annual power bills in the year through May increased faster than the national average, which was eyewatering in itself at over 6%.1
Plug prices, rather than pump prices, are igniting a political firestorm. In New Jersey, the latest flashpoint, utility bills figure prominently in a gubernatorial race that has gained national attention and is less than three months from election day. And at the heart of all this is the race for artificial intelligence.