No thanks to inflation, costs are ballooning across the United States. However, some prices are increasing faster than others. At the beginning of September, Geoff Bennett of PBS News spoke to Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, about a source of skyrocketing electrical costs: artificial intelligence data centers.

What's happening?

According to Peskoe, the sudden explosion of data center construction is a major factor in rising bills for not just the tech companies building them, but all Americans. 

"I think there's a chance that AI is going to drive our bills even higher in the future," he said. "And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that these facilities are using so much energy that utilities are building billions of dollars of infrastructure to support them and spreading those costs to all of us. And the second reason is … because demand from these AI energy centers is booming, it's driving up prices, and we're all paying those higher prices."

According to PBS News, the average nationwide increase is 6%, and some regions are seeing as much as 14% higher electrical costs because of "city-sized" data centers using more electricity than thousands of households and businesses combined.

Why are AI data centers making a difference to Americans?

Our country has never faced a situation in which individual companies stood to use so much of the electrical supply and make so much money from doing so. This unprecedented situation has turned the traditional approach to electric infrastructure into a liability for average citizens.

"The business model of the utility industry for now more than 100 years has been to invest in their systems and then spread those costs for everyone," said Peskoe. "And when you think about it, in a lot of ways, that is fair.

"So, for example, if there's a storm in your neighborhood and a tree falls on a power line and the lights go out in your neighborhood, the utility … doesn't bill you and everyone in your neighborhood for that … because certainly you did nothing wrong when that tree falls down. … It spreads those costs to everyone."

However, the logic that works for small-scale repairs and slow expansion does not work when one user needs more resources than any that have come before. 

"We're in a bit of a new situation here when you have individual facilities, these data centers, that are using as much electricity as large cities, and they happen to be supporting the wealthiest corporations in the world," said Peskoe. "I think we need to revisit some of these fundamental assumptions behind how we share the costs of our power system."

Nor have we seen the worst of the problem yet, according to Peskoe, who only expects to see data centers get larger and more common. "I think it's certainly possible that the costs of this data center expansion are going to increase for everyone," he said.

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What can I do about increasing electric costs?

With power bills going up across the country, one of the best ways to avoid the extra expense and lower your bills is with a home solar energy setup. Not only will solar panels provide free energy for their entire lifespan, they'll do it without producing planet-heating pollution. 

Buying solar panels to install can be too large an investment for some homeowners, but thankfully, there are other options. Leasing allows homeowners to access the benefits of home solar without the upfront costs. If you are interested in leasing solar panels, get in touch with Palmetto about its LightReach program, which includes plans with no money down.

If you would rather own than lease, you can minimize your upfront costs by finding a deal on installation through EnergySage. This vetted online marketplace offers free tools to help you receive and compare quotes from trusted local installers.

If you aren't sure whether owning or leasing makes more sense for your situation, check out this breakdown of pros and cons from Palmetto.

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