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Data centers are
proliferating in Virginia and a blind man in
Baltimore is suddenly contending with sharply
higher power bills.
The Maryland city
is well over an hour’s drive from the northern
Virginia region known as Data Center Alley. But
Kevin Stanley, a 57-year-old who survives on
disability payments, says his energy bills are
about 80% higher than they were about three
years ago.
“They’re
going up and up,” Kevin Stanley said. “You
wonder, ‘What is your breaking point?’” Photographer:
Leonardo Nicoletti/Bloomberg
It’s an
increasingly dramatic ripple effect of the AI
boom as energy-hungry data centers send power
costs to records in much of the US, pulling
everyday households into paying for the digital
economy.
A Bloomberg
News analysis of wholesale electricity
prices for tens of thousands of locations across
the country reveals the effects of the AI boom
on the power market with unprecedented
granularity. Electricity now costs as much as
267% more for a single month than it did five
years ago in areas located near significant data
center activity.
“No way I
could continue to pay that kind of bill,”
Nicole Pastore said. Photographer:
Leonardo Nicoletti/Bloomberg
The power
needs of the massive complexes are rapidly
driving up electricity bills — piling onto the
rising prices for food, housing and other
essentials already straining
consumers. That’s starting to have
economic and political
reverberations across the country as
utilities and local officials wrestle over how
to divvy
up the costs. Yet those same facilities
are a linchpin
of US leadership in the global AI race.
President Donald
Trump, who won election in part because of
Americans’ dissatisfaction with higher consumer
costs, said on
the campaign trail that he would cut electricity
prices in half within 18 months of taking
office. Yet prices have only risen since his
inauguration. His energy chief said this month
that soaring power bills are now his biggest
concern.
The president has
championed America’s AI dominance while also
stripping support for new sources of energy like
solar and wind farms with his One Big Beautiful
Bill Act, which some experts say will increase average
household energy bills. BloombergNEF forecasts
that annual deployment of new solar, wind and
energy storage facilities in 2035 will be 23%
lower than it would have been without the
bill.
Trump has instead
focused on unlocking power through expanding
the use of coal, natural gas and nuclear
energy. In a statement, White House spokeswoman
Taylor Rogers blamed the Biden administration’s
climate agenda and “destructive” policies for
driving up energy prices.
Back in Baltimore,
Antoinette Robinson leaned on her walker during
a recent afternoon stroll to complain that her
high power bills leave her with less than $100
in her bank account at the end of each month.
“It’s
killing my pockets,” Antoniette Robinson said.
Photographer: Leonardo Nicoletti/Bloomberg
Stanley says the
trees that used to grow on his street were cut
down. Without their shade, his home gets even
hotter in the summer, forcing him to rely more
on expensive air conditioning.
The rise in his
power bills has him reusing disposable razors 20
times and stretching the supplies for his
diabetes and sleep apnea. Sometimes he goes to
food banks.
“People shouldn’t
have to decide between their gas and electric
bill and food,” he said.
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