From CFACT

B yPaul Steidler

While there is a push by some politicians of both parties to singularly blame, and in some cases scapegoat, datacenters for rising electricity prices, data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) tells a much different story.

EIA’s most recent Electric Power Monthly on January 26 found that the nationwide average cost of residential electricity was 17.78 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the month of November 2025. That is up 5.5% from a year ago. It exceeds the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for that period, continuing a disturbing trend that began in 2021, long before the datacenter boom took off.

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.

Electricity costs have risen faster than the CPI over the past five years due to systemic problems: a shortage of supply (power plants), an aging transmission grid prone to bottlenecks, and regulatory inertia, including intractable permitting delays.

Datacenters can be catalysts for breaking these chains in our electrical system and revitalizing it, so that it not only meets our needs but does so at a lower cost. There is ample precedent for this.

Since electricity was first invented and was initially available only to the wealthy, its costs have trended lower. Despite significant price increases since 2021, according to the Federal Reserve, average residential electricity prices fell by 14.6% from 1978 to 2026 when measured in real dollars, that is, adjusted for inflation.

It is time to accelerate electricity production so that the increased supply dwarfs the rising demand from datacenters, new manufacturing facilities, homes that want to use more electronic devices, and other factors.

With many Americans facing high electricity bills amid the current cold snap, constructive dialogue should begin immediately, using the EIA data and a sober assessment of the immense electricity challenges now facing the country.

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy