If you noticed your utility bill has gone up this summer, you’re not alone. On average, electricity costs are 5.5% higher today than they were a year ago, according to the latest federal data, and natural gas is up 13.8%.
Nearly 60 utility companies are set to increase electricity rates this year by more than $38 billion, affecting more than 57 million Americans, according to analysis from the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
President Trump recently commented on the rising prices, blaming them on renewable power. He wrote on Truth Social that renewables were “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” And he vowed he would not approve wind and solar projects.
But higher rates are largely a result of higher demand, and that’s being driven by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, oil and gas drilling, space heating and electrified forms of transportation — all technologies that require immense amounts of power, according to Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, a D.C. based energy consultancy firm, “When supply is scarce, then prices go up,” he said.
Gramlich says that after 25 years of a flat demand for energy and a dip during the pandemic, demand rose once economic activity picked up after the pandemic was over.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also played a role in higher costs, disrupting international energy supply chains and causing rates to go up in the U.S. Rapid growth in data centers and newer electrified forms of technology mean the nation will need 15% more capacity — or 120 gigawatts — by the end of the decade to keep pace, Gramlich estimated.
The increasing demand is a big reason why the U.S. Energy Information Administration expects residential electricity rates to increase steadily by as much as 18% in the next few years, far outstripping the annual inflation rate of about 2.7%.
The fastest way to bring rates down would be to increase supply, but there are challenges.
U.S. falling behind on transmission
Gramlich, in recent testimony before Congress, said there’s no shortage of fuel to add to the grid — it’s a shortage of transmission that’s the major problem.
At the end of 2023, there were more than 2,600 gigawatts of energy waiting to get connected, representing over twice the current installed capacity of the U.S. power grid, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. And 95% of it was generated by solar, wind, and battery storage.
To meet growing electricity needs, the U.S. needs to expand transmission systems by 60% by 2030, and even that may need to triple by 2050, according to a 2022 report by the Department of Energy.
“If we can get a lot of transmission built, then I think we can meet the AI-driven data center demands,” Gramlich said.
AI data centers consume far more power from the grid than regular data centers, says Norman Bashir, a fellow at MIT’s Climate and Sustainability Consortium, where researchers are studying the impact of generative AI on the grid.
“AI data centers are much more power intensive,” Bashir told CBS News Boston last month. “So, if you have a normal data center, an AI data center would be up to 10 times more power intensive.”
Role of tariffs and equipment shortages
Beyond the transmission backlog, Gramlich says tariffs and equipment shortages are making energy projects more expensive. One example — gas turbines are extremely scarce right now, and that’s holding up the expansion of natural gas power plants.
“The price of an actual turbine has almost tripled,” Gramlich said. And the wait time for a gas turbine is around three or four years — even as long as seven, according to a May analysis by S&P Global.
Energy sources
Over the past decade, the nation’s energy mix has increasingly grown to favor natural gas and renewables, like wind, solar and hydropower, that have become much cheaper to produce. New nuclear plants won’t be on line before 2030, Gramlich said, and coal is becoming less economically viable because of maintenance and update costs required to address pollution concerns.
“That leaves wind and solar and battery storage that can help in this decade,” Gramlich told CBS News.
But the Trump administration has enacted policies to curtail new clean energy projects and instead foster greater reliance on fossil fuels. Approving and permitting new clean energy projects has become increasingly difficult, taking away a valuable asset from energy providers at a critical time.
“If things keep going like this, [utility bills] are gonna be higher next year,” Gramlich said.
Trump energy policies projected to raise prices
Upon returning to office, Mr. Trump issued a “National Energy Emergency” executive order, arguing the country needs “reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy to drive our Nation’s manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and defense industries, and to sustain the basics of modern life and military preparedness.”
Most of the actions tied to that order have gutted renewable energy generation and are bolstering fossil fuel development.
The passage of Trump’s signature legislation, One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is expected to make energy more expensive, impact jobs, and make it more difficult to meet rising energy demand, according to analysis by Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan energy and climate policy think tank.
OBBBA will change the tax code, increasing generation costs, resulting in a drop in power generation capacity of 340 gigawatts by 2035, says Michael O’Boyle, acting policy team director of Energy Innovation in an email to CBS News. To put that in perspective, 1 gigawatt typically powers 750,000 homes, so 340 gigawatts could power about 255 million homes.
O’Boyle estimates wholesale energy prices will increase by 74% by 2035, resulting in a $170 annual increase in the average household energy bill. Some 760,000 jobs could be lost by 2030, and the states that are expected to see the biggest impacts on energy cost increases and job losses from the OBBBA are South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Kentucky and North Carolina.
The Energy Department criticized the analysis and its support of renewables arguing, “The OBBBA ensures taxpayers will no longer be forced to subsidize intermittent energy sources like wind and solar – subsidies that have only resulted in more expensive, less reliable energy,” said Ben Dietderich, the department’s press secretary and chief spokesman, in an email to CBS News.
Ending Biden-era clean energy policies
Since he returned to office, Mr. Trump has been dismantling Biden-era clean energy policies, resulting in the termination of more than $22 billion in renewable energy projects, according to an analysis by the environmental policy firm E2.
“Unfortunately, the president and Congress is making it harder for Americans to have access to the cheapest, cleanest, quickest to deploy power there is,” said Bob Keefe, E2’s executive director.
“By slowing clean energy deployment, the Administration is directly fueling cost increases,” Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, said in a statement. Grumet cited EIA data and noted, “The top four clean energy states are seeing prices decline this year, while the 10 states with the least renewable power all face rising costs.”
Trump admin. keeping fossil fuel generation alive
To address rising energy demand, the Energy Department has ordered some utility companies to keep coal power plants open beyond their retirement dates, an action that could cost more than $3.1 billion a year by 2028, according to analysis by Gramlich’s firm, Grid Strategies.
“These coal plants are basically uneconomic in the market. Each year, they incur tens of millions of dollars of maintenance just to stay operating,” said Gramlich.
Those costs to extend the life of coal plants will be borne by ratepayers, according to a ruling by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Coal plants are generally planned for retirement when their operating cost exceeds their expected revenue or their value to the electric grid, the EIA has pointed out. Coal-fired plants, which produce high levels of CO2 emissions, have been under pressure to be phased out in many states, in particular, those with clean energy goals. According to the EIA, natural gas and clean energy sources are providing a growing share of the nation’s electricity, while coal has been waning. By the end of 2023, the maximum potential power plant output for coal was 15.2%, down from 45% in 1990.
If additional fossil fuel-based plants delay retirement dates — 28% were expected to be retired by 2035 — the bill to ratepayers could grow to more than $6 billion.
Still, Energy Secretary Chris Wright supports the administration’s efforts to keep fossil fuel generation online longer.
“The United States cannot afford to continue down the unstable and dangerous path of energy subtraction previous leaders pursued, forcing the closure of baseload power sources like coal and natural gas,” he said in a statement, upon releasing a report on the U.S. grid’s reliability. “If we are going to keep the lights on, win the AI race, and keep electricity prices from skyrocketing, the United States must unleash American energy.”
