Surprise! It’s not the data centers.
Voices carried across a school gym in Loudoun County. A packed planning meeting about new power lines drew parents in jeans, an engineer in a neon vest, and a retired systems analyst who shook his head as he stepped to the mic. “We don’t want to pay for something that’s going to go somewhere else,” said Jatinder Chandok, pointing at a map of data-center sprawl and the proposed high-voltage lines to feed it. The applause was instinctive, the fear familiar: big tech moves in, the bills go up, and ordinary households foot the tab.
The newest analysis from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working with the Brattle Group, complicates that story. Across states from 2019–2024, when total electricity use grew, average prices often didn’t. The researchers estimate that a 10 percent increase in statewide load reduced average prices by about 0.6¢/kWh, largely because fixed grid costs were spread over more kilowatt-hours (for scale: average U.S. residential price is ~13¢/kWh). In a business where poles and wires dominate the bill, selling more units can make the units cheaper.¹
North Dakota is the cleanest example. Load rose roughly 40% over the period—data centers among the drivers—yet inflation-adjusted prices fell by about 3¢/kWh. Commercial and industrial rates declined; residential prices were flat in nominal dollars and down after inflation, cushioned by local wind, coal, and cheap gas.¹ ¹² Virginia sits on the tightrope. Statewide, demand climbed about 14% and average prices dipped ~1¢/kWh—but inside Dominion’s territory, residential prices were up roughly 3¢/kWh in nominal terms and only slightly down after inflation because rapid load growth offset part of the rise. Regulators are already bracing for the next chapter: Dominion has proposed base-rate increases and a separate rate class for data centers to reflect rising costs for capacity, labor, equipment, and grid upgrades.¹² ⁶
More load can lower average prices—until it can’t.
California shows the other side of the ledger. Overall demand slipped a bit even as prices jumped.