Maybe a statewide law is the blunt instrument necessary to force data centers to do their due diligence and pay upfront to prevent citizens from having to pay.
An individual citizen can’t fight this fight. So who will?
Is it cheaper for an AI company to sign a PPA and/ or pull from their own NatGas/ Nuclear power plant or purchase from the grid at retail rates?
A PPA doesn’t make sense unless there is such a surplus of energy that the energy provider is losing money if they don’t find someone to buy it.
The basic problem most communities have, I think, is there isn’t any sort of super abundance of available electrical energy. So competing with the DC for retail rates is absolutely going to kill the average citizen.
So the DC has to provide its own energy. If the community doesn’t want nuclear energy and the threat of nuclear waste, the DC is shit out of luck unless they can find a different source of the electrical energy.
We live in a free society and if the majority says we don’t want you, go somewhere else. It’s not uncommon for restrictions to be put on businesses.
@squeakyclean people see a DC go up in their general vicinity and see their utility bill go up and jump to conclusions. Doesn't mean they're correct to blame the DC. The NE and California have eschewed NatGas. That was dumb. California has strangled itself with climate policies. That was dumb.
Do you see a compelling trend line between load growth and price per kilowatt-hour? Because I don't.
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Is it not fair then to say that state energy/ climate policy is a much larger factor in residential electricity prices than DC growth?
I think you are missing my point. Most people have seen their energy bills go up and most understand it wasn't due to the DC's. It isn't just a NE / W thing. It's an "across the country" thing.
The problem is that the DC boom is just starting. The electricity rates are going to go up again, even if only incrementally in some places.
People are already pissed. Any addition from the DC's is just piling on. That's why there is pushback.
Maybe a statewide law is the blunt instrument necessary to force data centers to do their due diligence and pay upfront to prevent citizens from having to pay.
An individual citizen can’t fight this fight. So who will?
Is it cheaper for an AI company to sign a PPA and/ or pull from their own NatGas/ Nuclear power plant or purchase from the grid at retail rates?
A PPA doesn’t make sense unless there is such a surplus of energy that the energy provider is losing money if they don’t find someone to buy it.
The basic problem most communities have, I think, is there isn’t any sort of super abundance of available electrical energy. So competing with the DC for retail rates is absolutely going to kill the average citizen.
So the DC has to provide its own energy. If the community doesn’t want nuclear energy and the threat of nuclear waste, the DC is shit out of luck unless they can find a different source of the electrical energy.
We live in a free society and if the majority says we don’t want you, go somewhere else.
That's a misread of PPA's. Renewable energy developers prefer large commercial buyers to utilities companies because large commercial pay a premium (though still less than buying from a utility). The predictable cash flow allows for financing for further expansion which can go towards utilities/ residential and large commercial. There is not a single industry on earth, including renewable energy, that is in the business over overproduction. If you support solar expansion, you should support DC expansion.
Also DC's can't contract or build their own natural gas or solar? That's weird because they do. It's not limited to nuclear as you seem to imply.
Your last sentence is definitely right. States that don't want DC's because of their misconceptions, will take it on the chin and there are more than enough states willing. The issue comes if another Biden administration or worse comes back into power and in their infinite wisdom tries to cram down federal regulation under the guise of consumer protection. There's enough misguided Republicans in congress and power within the administrative state that they could be successful.
Frankly, the average American doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about wrt to AI or Data Centers. They have a generalized anxiety about losing their job and DC's are the best physical manifestation of that so they hate them.
Water, utility prices, noise, they're all red herrings offered up by luddites who are really just afraid of change. Nothing new about that.
This post was modified 3 months ago 2 times by CarRamRod
if others know more about this topic let's hear it. the city here just approved one for $3 billion at the old armory. @larsiu when i was in grade school we played winter indoor there one season. 6 am saturday morning games in the dead of winter in that place. was absolutely freezing. size of 4 football fields
Sounds like a perfect place for a Data Center. NY should keep this up - it will soon have nothing left to tax.
Chicago, Minneapolis and some other MW cities are repurposing office vacancies for Data Center usage. If you build a grid that supports the electricity or help them acquire mini power plants so they don't impact the grid, data centers can contribute a significant amount of tax revenue over time.
If datacenters are the singular reason for high electricity prices, then the states with the most of them should be in dire straits, pricewise. They are not.
A January 2026 study from the American Edge Project found that the two states with the most datacenters are, by far, Virginia (663) and Texas (405). These two states account for 26% of all U.S. datacenters.
Yet the average residential electricity rate in Virginia is 15.94 cents per kWh, more than 10% less than the national average. Yes, those costs have increased over the past year, and by slightly more than the national increase (8.2% vs. 5.5%), while Virginia has gained an influx of high-paying jobs, tax revenue, and other economic activity.
In Texas, the average residential electricity rate is 16.04 cents per kWh, 9.8% less than the national average. Over the past year, in energy-friendly Texas, residential electricity prices have risen 2.3%.
At the other end of the cost spectrum is Vermont, home of Senator Bernie Sanders, who has aggressively sought to demonize datacenters. Vermont has the fewest datacenters in the country – three. Yet Vermont’s residential electric rates are 36% above the national average, an onerous financial burden, especially in a state that does not receive the vast economic benefits of datacenters.
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan. POTFB
If datacenters are the singular reason for high electricity prices, then the states with the most of them should be in dire straits, pricewise. They are not.
A January 2026 study from the American Edge Project found that the two states with the most datacenters are, by far, Virginia (663) and Texas (405). These two states account for 26% of all U.S. datacenters.
Yet the average residential electricity rate in Virginia is 15.94 cents per kWh, more than 10% less than the national average. Yes, those costs have increased over the past year, and by slightly more than the national increase (8.2% vs. 5.5%), while Virginia has gained an influx of high-paying jobs, tax revenue, and other economic activity.
In Texas, the average residential electricity rate is 16.04 cents per kWh, 9.8% less than the national average. Over the past year, in energy-friendly Texas, residential electricity prices have risen 2.3%.
At the other end of the cost spectrum is Vermont, home of Senator Bernie Sanders, who has aggressively sought to demonize datacenters. Vermont has the fewest datacenters in the country – three. Yet Vermont’s residential electric rates are 36% above the national average, an onerous financial burden, especially in a state that does not receive the vast economic benefits of datacenters.
This is kinda a mish-mash of info. The rates that people pay for electricity differ state to state but are also usually proportional to the average wage as well. For example, you pay more for gas in Oregon than Iowa (pulling numbers out of my rear, but say $4.00 a gallon versus $3.70), but based upon the average wage a person makes in\those two states, you are actually paying a smaller percentage of your income in Oregon as compared to Iowa for gas (average income of Iowa is 58K while it's 70K in Oregon). Electricity is the same way, so comparing the rates isn't exactly the correct way to analyze this. They are trying to demonize Vermont for their rate, but they also have one of the higher average income levels in the nation.
The bigger item to note was the percentage increases. They kinda gloss over the "Virginia's rates have increase by slightly more (8.2" vs 5.5%)", but that is actually a pretty big difference. That's a 50% increase compared to other states.
If datacenters are the singular reason for high electricity prices, then the states with the most of them should be in dire straits, pricewise. They are not.
A January 2026 study from the American Edge Project found that the two states with the most datacenters are, by far, Virginia (663) and Texas (405). These two states account for 26% of all U.S. datacenters.
Yet the average residential electricity rate in Virginia is 15.94 cents per kWh, more than 10% less than the national average. Yes, those costs have increased over the past year, and by slightly more than the national increase (8.2% vs. 5.5%), while Virginia has gained an influx of high-paying jobs, tax revenue, and other economic activity.
In Texas, the average residential electricity rate is 16.04 cents per kWh, 9.8% less than the national average. Over the past year, in energy-friendly Texas, residential electricity prices have risen 2.3%.
At the other end of the cost spectrum is Vermont, home of Senator Bernie Sanders, who has aggressively sought to demonize datacenters. Vermont has the fewest datacenters in the country – three. Yet Vermont’s residential electric rates are 36% above the national average, an onerous financial burden, especially in a state that does not receive the vast economic benefits of datacenters.
This is kinda a mish-mash of info. The rates that people pay for electricity differ state to state but are also usually proportional to the average wage as well. For example, you pay more for gas in Oregon than Iowa (pulling numbers out of my rear, but say $4.00 a gallon versus $3.70), but based upon the average wage a person makes in\those two states, you are actually paying a smaller percentage of your income in Oregon as compared to Iowa for gas (average income of Iowa is 58K while it's 70K in Oregon). Electricity is the same way, so comparing the rates isn't exactly the correct way to analyze this. They are trying to demonize Vermont for their rate, but they also have one of the higher average income levels in the nation.
The bigger item to note was the percentage increases. They kinda gloss over the "Virginia's rates have increase by slightly more (8.2" vs 5.5%)", but that is actually a pretty big difference. That's a 50% increase compared to other states.
There's no demonization of Vermont.
The difference with gas is state taxes. The difference with electricity is the regulatory framework and it's burden, which varies by state.
You can't talk about a mish mash from that study and then use a mostly nonregulated product that isn't a quasi-government monopoly with a highly regulated product that is a quasi-government monopoly.
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan. POTFB
The difference with gas is state taxes. The difference with electricity is the regulatory framework and it's burden, which varies by state.
You can't talk about a mish mash from that study and then use a mostly nonregulated product that isn't a quasi-government monopoly with a highly regulated product that is a quasi-government monopoly.
I get that, but the point is still the same. The point of the article was trying to prove that Virginia and Texas electricity rates have not been affected by the addition of data centers, but then the use the average electricity rate charge when compared to other states like Vermont. There are a myriad of reasons why electricity rates differ state to state that have existed for decades before data centers came into play. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison.
The more apt study would be to compare the percentage increases in rates to local communities where data centers have been added, not an overall comparison of state rates.
The difference with gas is state taxes. The difference with electricity is the regulatory framework and it's burden, which varies by state.
You can't talk about a mish mash from that study and then use a mostly nonregulated product that isn't a quasi-government monopoly with a highly regulated product that is a quasi-government monopoly.
I get that, but the point is still the same. The point of the article was trying to prove that Virginia and Texas electricity rates have not been affected by the addition of data centers, but then the use the average electricity rate charge when compared to other states like Vermont. There are a myriad of reasons why electricity rates differ state to state that have existed for decades before data centers came into play. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison.
The more apt study would be to compare the percentage increases in rates to local communities where data centers have been added, not an overall comparison of state rates.
I think the point of the article is that it's state regulations that have the biggest impact on the cost of electricity. Increased demand isn't in question, but the cost to deliver is the issue. Capacity and transmission haven't kept up in some of these states with the rise in demand that started around 25 years ago.
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan. POTFB
I think the point of the article is that it's state regulations that have the biggest impact on the cost of electricity. Increased demand isn't in question, but the cost to deliver is the issue. Capacity and transmission haven't kept up in some of these states with the rise in demand that started around 25 years ago.
