Energy costs are rising this summer, and it’s not entirely because you’re sitting in front of your air conditioner for 16 hours a day wondering why people prefer this season over winter.

No, it’s mostly due to the prevalence of AI data centers, the power-sucking buildings that allow users to ask generative AI bots like Grok if something is true:

• PJM Interconnection provides electricity to 13 states and Washington, DC, and is considered a bellwether for the rest of the US.
• Its customers are seeing a spike in energy bills as high as 20% this summer. The boom in AI data centers is the main culprit.

Why are residents paying for Big Tech’s power needs? PJM conducts a yearly capacity auction, during which utilities in the states it serves pay to ensure they have enough power to cover peak usage days. Last year, capacity prices at auction rose by 833%, and the impact is now being felt. An independent monitor attributed three-quarters of those increases, which are eventually passed onto customers, to the demand from existing (and impending) data centers.

But it’s not just data centers

In addition to a supply/demand imbalance and inflation, factors causing the monthly double take at your energy bill include:

• The heat dome that has hovered over parts of the US this month, which was found to be a result of “human-caused climate change,” per the climate impact nonprofit Climate Central.
• Costly upgrades to modernize and solidify the grid against climate disasters. Those expenses are often recouped by companies through higher electricity rates.
• Interconnection queues, aka the time it takes for approval to connect more power generators that would decrease costs to the grid, can take up to five years.

Bottom line: Relief may not be coming any time soon. President Trump promised to cut energy costs in half during the first 12 months of his administration, but a report from a nonpartisan think tank foresees prices rising due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.—