Uptime Report Research · Price vs Load Test

Data Center Electricity Prices: PJM Home Rates Rose 11% in a Year, Nearly Twice the Rest of the US

Are data center electricity prices showing up in household bills? We tested EIA data for every state: not state by state, but yes through PJM’s shared capacity market. US residential power averaged 18.19 cents per kWh in January to August 2026, up 39% since 2019. In the 9 PJM-majority jurisdictions, home prices rose 11.3% in one year, against 5.8% elsewhere.

18.19¢US residential price per kWh, January to August 2026 (+39.3% since 2019; inflation +30.1%)
+11.3%residential price change in a year, 9 PJM-majority jurisdictions (rest of US +5.8%)
-0.41rank correlation: commercial load growth vs residential price change, 51 jurisdictions (negative)
$29.4BPJM capacity charges the market monitor attributes to data center load, last four auctions (46.2%)

The question behind the search “are data centers raising electricity prices” is testable, so we tested it. We took EIA’s average retail prices for every state and sector, monthly from 2019 through August 2026, and set them against two data center load signals already used in our data centers by state atlas: growth in commercial electricity sales and the number of mapped data center sites. Then we added the one place where data center costs are measured directly: PJM’s capacity auctions and its Independent Market Monitor’s reports.

The testAre residential electricity prices rising faster in data-center-heavy states? Like-for-like window: January to August 2019 vs January to August 2026, 51 jurisdictions.
What the data showsNo positive link at the state level. Faster commercial load growth went with smaller price increases (Spearman -0.41, permutation p=0.004). Mapped site counts show no relationship (0.04). The clear signal is regional: PJM.
What it cannot showCorrelation across 51 places is not cause. It cannot isolate a data center’s effect on one utility’s tariff, it ignores costs that have not reached bills yet, and fast-growing states differ in many other ways.

Price vs load: the state-level scatter

Residential price change vs commercial electricity sales growth, by state

PJM-majority jurisdiction other states · circle size = mapped data center sites (PNNL) · dashed line = least-squares fit

+0%+20%+40%+60%+80%+100%-10%+10%+30%+50%+70%+90%US average +39.3%Virginia: residential price 12.07 to 16.95 cents/kWh (+40.4%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +60.5% (2019 to 2025); 239 mapped data center sites; PJM share 99%Texas: residential price 11.73 to 16.03 cents/kWh (+36.6%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +23.0% (2019 to 2025); 117 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%California: residential price 19.37 to 32.58 cents/kWh (+68.2%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -0.1% (2019 to 2025); 109 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Oregon: residential price 10.99 to 15.46 cents/kWh (+40.7%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +81.3% (2019 to 2025); 97 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Ohio: residential price 12.54 to 18.81 cents/kWh (+50.0%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +25.5% (2019 to 2025); 74 mapped data center sites; PJM share 100%Arizona: residential price 12.53 to 15.36 cents/kWh (+22.6%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +27.9% (2019 to 2025); 58 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Washington: residential price 9.70 to 14.42 cents/kWh (+48.6%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +13.8% (2019 to 2025); 52 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%New Jersey: residential price 16.06 to 24.09 cents/kWh (+50.0%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -2.6% (2019 to 2025); 49 mapped data center sites; PJM share 100%Illinois: residential price 12.96 to 19.23 cents/kWh (+48.3%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -5.9% (2019 to 2025); 44 mapped data center sites; PJM share 71%Iowa: residential price 12.65 to 14.55 cents/kWh (+15.0%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +10.7% (2019 to 2025); 39 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Nevada: residential price 11.92 to 13.36 cents/kWh (+12.1%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +22.1% (2019 to 2025); 36 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Georgia: residential price 12.10 to 15.48 cents/kWh (+27.9%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +20.5% (2019 to 2025); 31 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Colorado: residential price 12.26 to 16.80 cents/kWh (+37.0%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -0.8% (2019 to 2025); 20 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%New York: residential price 17.85 to 29.26 cents/kWh (+64.0%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -3.9% (2019 to 2025); 20 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Nebraska: residential price 10.72 to 12.92 cents/kWh (+20.6%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +58.4% (2019 to 2025); 18 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%North Carolina: residential price 11.41 to 14.94 cents/kWh (+31.0%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +2.1% (2019 to 2025); 17 mapped data center sites; PJM share 3%Florida: residential price 11.66 to 15.32 cents/kWh (+31.4%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +3.9% (2019 to 2025); 15 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Tennessee: residential price 10.94 to 13.80 cents/kWh (+26.1%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +0.9% (2019 to 2025); 15 mapped data center sites; PJM share 1%Maryland: residential price 13.14 to 21.31 cents/kWh (+62.2%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -4.1% (2019 to 2025); 13 mapped data center sites; PJM share 100%Missouri: residential price 11.41 to 14.28 cents/kWh (+25.1%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +0.8% (2019 to 2025); 13 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Wisconsin: residential price 14.15 to 19.05 cents/kWh (+34.7%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +0.8% (2019 to 2025); 13 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%New Mexico: residential price 12.54 to 15.34 cents/kWh (+22.3%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +3.9% (2019 to 2025); 11 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Michigan: residential price 15.64 to 21.73 cents/kWh (+38.9%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -1.4% (2019 to 2025); 10 mapped data center sites; PJM share 4%Utah: residential price 10.44 to 13.19 cents/kWh (+26.4%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +24.4% (2019 to 2025); 10 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Minnesota: residential price 13.15 to 16.44 cents/kWh (+25.1%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -0.4% (2019 to 2025); 9 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Pennsylvania: residential price 13.68 to 21.13 cents/kWh (+54.5%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +0.4% (2019 to 2025); 9 mapped data center sites; PJM share 100%Kansas: residential price 12.72 to 15.26 cents/kWh (+20.0%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +2.1% (2019 to 2025); 7 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Alabama: residential price 12.64 to 16.51 cents/kWh (+30.6%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -1.0% (2019 to 2025); 6 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Oklahoma: residential price 10.20 to 13.81 cents/kWh (+35.3%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +36.1% (2019 to 2025); 6 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Wyoming: residential price 11.17 to 14.01 cents/kWh (+25.4%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +58.0% (2019 to 2025); 6 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Connecticut: residential price 22.18 to 27.47 cents/kWh (+23.8%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -4.3% (2019 to 2025); 5 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Indiana: residential price 12.61 to 17.04 cents/kWh (+35.2%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +9.0% (2019 to 2025); 5 mapped data center sites; PJM share 20%Kentucky: residential price 10.74 to 14.20 cents/kWh (+32.2%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +6.0% (2019 to 2025); 5 mapped data center sites; PJM share 39%Idaho: residential price 9.98 to 13.02 cents/kWh (+30.4%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +10.1% (2019 to 2025); 3 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Massachusetts: residential price 21.93 to 30.19 cents/kWh (+37.7%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -3.6% (2019 to 2025); 3 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%New Hampshire: residential price 20.02 to 26.91 cents/kWh (+34.4%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -1.2% (2019 to 2025); 3 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%South Carolina: residential price 12.81 to 15.90 cents/kWh (+24.1%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +19.4% (2019 to 2025); 3 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Arkansas: residential price 9.86 to 13.74 cents/kWh (+39.4%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -0.0% (2019 to 2025); 2 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Maine: residential price 17.85 to 30.23 cents/kWh (+69.4%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -1.9% (2019 to 2025); 2 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Mississippi: residential price 11.32 to 15.06 cents/kWh (+33.1%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +0.9% (2019 to 2025); 2 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Montana: residential price 11.05 to 14.13 cents/kWh (+27.9%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +3.5% (2019 to 2025); 2 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%North Dakota: residential price 10.36 to 12.46 cents/kWh (+20.2%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +63.3% (2019 to 2025); 2 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%South Dakota: residential price 11.46 to 14.58 cents/kWh (+27.2%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +12.2% (2019 to 2025); 2 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%District of Columbia: residential price 12.95 to 24.86 cents/kWh (+91.9%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -9.1% (2019 to 2025); 1 mapped data center sites; PJM share 100%Louisiana: residential price 9.80 to 13.27 cents/kWh (+35.4%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -1.2% (2019 to 2025); 1 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%West Virginia: residential price 11.16 to 15.58 cents/kWh (+39.6%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +5.9% (2019 to 2025); 1 mapped data center sites; PJM share 100%Alaska: residential price 22.73 to 27.32 cents/kWh (+20.2%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -1.6% (2019 to 2025); 0 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Delaware: residential price 12.40 to 17.98 cents/kWh (+45.0%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -3.2% (2019 to 2025); 0 mapped data center sites; PJM share 100%Hawaii: residential price 32.66 to 46.41 cents/kWh (+42.1%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales -7.6% (2019 to 2025); 0 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Rhode Island: residential price 21.59 to 29.05 cents/kWh (+34.6%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +0.2% (2019 to 2025); 0 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%Vermont: residential price 17.05 to 23.93 cents/kWh (+40.4%, January to August 2019 vs 2026); commercial sales +2.9% (2019 to 2025); 0 mapped data center sites; PJM share 0%VAORNDNEWYTXOHAZOKCADCMDMENYNVPANJILHIUTGAWAIACommercial electricity sales growth, 2019 to 2025 (data center load proxy)Residential price change, Jan to Aug 2019 vs 2026

Prices: EIA-861M, residential revenue divided by sales, January to August 2019 vs January to August 2026 (2026 preliminary). Commercial sales: EIA-861 annual, 2019 to 2025, the data center proxy used in our state atlas. Hover a circle for values.

Pearson r = -0.29 (p=0.040)Spearman = -0.41 (p=0.004)vs mapped sites: Spearman 0.04 (p=0.77)January to August sales growth version: Spearman -0.50R² of the fit = 0.08

If data center growth were pushing up household rates in the states where it happens, the dots would climb from left to right. They do the opposite, weakly. The ten states with the fastest commercial sales growth, led by Oregon (+81%), North Dakota (+63%), and Virginia (+60%), had a median residential increase of 30.8%, against 34.6% for the other 41. North Dakota (+63% commercial sales), Nebraska (+58%), and Wyoming (+58%) had residential increases of 20%, 21%, and 25%, all below the national 39%. The negative link is not just a PJM effect: among the 42 jurisdictions outside the PJM group, the rank correlation is -0.36 (p=0.018).

Counting mapped data center sites instead gives no pattern at all (Spearman 0.04). The ten states with the most mapped sites had a higher median increase (44.5% vs 32.2%), but that comes from California, New Jersey, Illinois, and Washington, where prices rose for reasons covered below. Virginia, with 239 of 1,207 mapped sites, rose 40.4%, close to the national average over the full period.

This matches the national laboratory work on the same question. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s April 2026 update found that “From 2019 to 2025, states with the highest growth generally saw average retail prices decline in real terms”, while for households “the relationship between residential prices and load growth is not as clear as for all-sector average prices.” The lab’s explanation is that much of the cost of a grid is fixed, so prices tend to fall when those costs are spread over more sales. Our own data agrees on direction: the 12 jurisdictions where total retail sales fell from 2019 to 2025 had a median residential increase of 51.5%, against 28.4% in the 12 where sales grew 10% or more.

The exception: PJM, where data center costs are pooled

PJM runs the grid and wholesale market for all or parts of 13 states and DC. In our data, utilities in PJM deliver at least half of residential power in 9 of them: Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Those jurisdictions break the state-level pattern. They sit above the trend line in the scatter, and 6 of the 10 largest residential increases since 2019 are PJM-majority jurisdictions (District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Illinois).

The timing points to the capacity market. PJM’s Base Residual Auction sets a price per megawatt-day that load-serving utilities pay to keep enough generation available. For the delivery year that began in June 2025, the price jumped from $28.92 to $269.92. The next three auctions all cleared at the negotiated price cap.

PJM capacity auction clearing prices, and the share the market monitor attributes to data centers

$0$60$120$180$240$300$3602018/19 delivery year: $164.77/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $10.9B$1652018/192019/20 delivery year: $100.00/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $7.0B$1002019/202020/21 delivery year: $76.53/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $7.0B$772020/212021/22 delivery year: $140.00/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $9.3B$1402021/222022/23 delivery year: $50.00/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $3.9B$502022/232023/24 delivery year: $34.13/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $2.2B$342023/242024/25 delivery year: $28.92/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $2.2B$292024/252025/26 delivery year: $269.92/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $14.7B; IMM attributes $9.3B to data center load$2702025/2664% DC2026/27 delivery year: $329.17/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $16.1B; IMM attributes $7.3B to data center load$3292026/2745% DC2027/28 delivery year: $333.44/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $16.4B; IMM attributes $6.5B to data center load$3332027/2840% DC2028/29 delivery year: $325.00/MW-day RTO clearing price; cleared supply times price $16.4B; IMM attributes $6.3B to data center load$3252028/2938% DCRTO clearing price, $/MW-day (UCAP), by delivery year

Bars: RTO clearing price from PJM’s 2028/2029 BRA report (Table 2). Dark segment and label: the Independent Market Monitor’s estimate of capacity charges resulting from existing and forecast data center load, as a share of total auction charges (2025/26 Part G Scenario 88; 2026/27 and 2027/28 Part A reports; 2028/29 from the IMM’s 27 July 2026 report to the PJM Members Committee).

“Data center load growth is the primary reason for recent and expected capacity market conditions, including total forecast load growth, the tight supply and demand balance, and high prices.”Independent Market Monitor for PJM, Analysis of the 2025/2026 RPM Base Residual Auction, Part G (revised 3 June 2025)

“The IMM analysis shows that of the $16.4B in capacity market charges, $6.3B was a result of data center load. This was 38.2 percent of the capacity market charges.”Monitoring Analytics, Market Monitor Report to the PJM Members Committee, 27 July 2026

“But this auction leaves no doubt that data centers’ demand for electricity continues to far outstrip new supply.”Stu Bresler, PJM, 2027/2028 auction release, 17 December 2025. The same release: “Nearly 5,100 MW of that increase is attributable to data center demand.”

Across the four auctions from 2025/26 to 2028/29, the monitor puts the data center share at $29.4B, or 46.2% of capacity charges. PJM itself said in July 2025 that it “would expect the cap price to translate to a year-over-year increase of 1.5 to 5% in some customers’ bills,” and capacity is only one part of a bill.

Residential electricity price, 12-month trailing average, PJM-majority vs rest of US (cents per kWh)

11¢13¢15¢17¢19¢21¢2020202120222023202420252026June 2025: $269.92 capacity year begins19.48¢PJM-majority (9)17.71¢Rest of US (42)12 months to Dec 2019: PJM-majority 13.12, rest of US 12.99 cents/kWh12 months to Jun 2020: PJM-majority 13.12, rest of US 13.03 cents/kWh12 months to Dec 2020: PJM-majority 13.09, rest of US 13.17 cents/kWh12 months to Jun 2021: PJM-majority 13.03, rest of US 13.37 cents/kWh12 months to Dec 2021: PJM-majority 13.30, rest of US 13.74 cents/kWh12 months to Jun 2022: PJM-majority 13.78, rest of US 14.26 cents/kWh12 months to Dec 2022: PJM-majority 14.83, rest of US 15.09 cents/kWh12 months to Jun 2023: PJM-majority 15.89, rest of US 15.74 cents/kWh12 months to Dec 2023: PJM-majority 16.14, rest of US 15.97 cents/kWh12 months to Jun 2024: PJM-majority 16.25, rest of US 16.11 cents/kWh12 months to Dec 2024: PJM-majority 16.60, rest of US 16.45 cents/kWh12 months to Jun 2025: PJM-majority 17.06, rest of US 16.69 cents/kWh12 months to Dec 2025: PJM-majority 18.09, rest of US 17.04 cents/kWh12 months to Jun 2026: PJM-majority 19.15, rest of US 17.58 cents/kWh

EIA-861M revenue divided by sales, summed across each group. PJM-majority: jurisdictions where utilities reporting PJM as their balancing authority delivered at least 50% of residential MWh in EIA-861 (2024).

From January to August 2019 to January to August 2025, PJM-majority residential prices rose 35.3%, against 29.3% elsewhere, about one point a year faster. In the following twelve months they rose 11.3%, against 5.8%. The monthly data shows when the gap opened. In May 2025, PJM-majority prices were 6.1% above a year earlier, against 5.6% elsewhere. In June 2025, the first month of the $269.92 capacity year, the figures were 11.6% and 5.3%, and by July the gap was 9.5 points. PJM prices have pulled ahead before: in the first half of 2023 the gap reached 8.6 points, when capacity prices were low ($50.00 and $34.13 per MW-day), a reminder that energy costs move PJM bills too. It also shows up in states with few data centers and flat commercial demand: Maryland (+12.6% in a year), Pennsylvania (+12.1%), and the District of Columbia (+17.2%), not only Virginia (+13.0%) and Ohio (+13.0%). West Virginia (+1.4%) is the exception in the group. When capacity costs are set in a regional market, the bill follows the market footprint, not the data center’s address.

Confounders: what else moved electricity prices

A 51-point scatter cannot separate data centers from everything else that changed after 2019. Three confounders matter most, and each is visible in primary data.

Natural gas prices

2019: $2.57/MMBtu average Henry Hub spot$2.57192020: $2.03/MMBtu average Henry Hub spot$2.03202021: $3.91/MMBtu average Henry Hub spot$3.91212022: $6.42/MMBtu average Henry Hub spot$6.42222023: $2.54/MMBtu average Henry Hub spot$2.54232024: $2.19/MMBtu average Henry Hub spot$2.19242025: $3.53/MMBtu average Henry Hub spot$3.53252026 (Jan to Sep): $3.54/MMBtu average Henry Hub spot$3.5426*

* 2026 = January to September.

Henry Hub averaged $2.57 per MMBtu in 2019, $6.42 in 2022, and $3.54 in 2026 through September. In PJM, the monitor reported that “energy costs increased by 47.7 percent” in January to June 2026, while capacity costs rose 207.1%.

Wildfire costs

California had the third-largest residential increase in the country (+68.2%) with flat commercial sales (-0.1%). Its regulator reports that “Wildfire-related revenue requirement in 2024 made up about 27 percent of PG&E’s total revenue requirement,” and that wildfire costs authorized for recovery from 2019 to 2024 total approximately $40 billion. Adding a California indicator to our regression raises the explained share from 0.34 to 0.44.

Regional markets

Where a state buys power shapes how costs reach bills. Median residential increase since 2019 by dominant market: PJM 50%, ISO New England 36%, MISO 34%, SPP 24%, and states outside an RTO 28%. New York (+64.0%) and Maine (+69.4%) rose sharply with falling commercial sales.

Putting the pieces together in one regression across 51 jurisdictions, with commercial load growth, PJM share, and the 2019 gas share of in-state generation: each 10 points of commercial sales growth went with 1.8 points less residential price growth (t=-2.0, only just significant at the usual 5% level), while a fully PJM jurisdiction had 20 points more (t=4.1). Gas share added little once the others were included (t=0.4). The model explains 34% of the variation, so most of the story is state-specific.

Electricity prices by state: all 50 states and DC

Average residential price, January to August 2026, compared with the same months of 2019 and of 2025. The latest single month, August 2026, comes from EIA’s Electric Power Monthly table 5.6.A, where the US residential price was 18.16 cents (+3.4% on August 2025). Hawaii is the most expensive state and North Dakota the cheapest. The largest increases since 2019 were in District of Columbia (+91.9%), Maine (+69.4%), and California (+68.2%). Click a column header to sort; PJM-majority rows are shaded.

State Residential, Jan to Aug 2026 (¢/kWh) Same months 2019 Change since 2019 Change in a year August 2026 Commercial, 2026 YTD Industrial, 2026 YTD Commercial sales growth, 2019 to 2025 Mapped DC sites PJM share
Hawaii 46.41 32.66 +42.1% +14.7% 47.18 42.43 37.83 -8% 0 0%
California 32.58 19.37 +68.2% +4.7% 29.75 26.96 21.11 -0% 109 0%
Maine 30.23 17.85 +69.4% +10.0% 32.11 22.83 15.62 -2% 2 0%
Massachusetts 30.19 21.93 +37.7% -0.1% 30.48 24.66 19.94 -4% 3 0%
New York 29.26 17.85 +64.0% +12.1% 28.65 22.93 10.33 -4% 20 0%
Rhode Island 29.05 21.59 +34.6% -0.1% 28.18 23.68 21.57 +0% 0 0%
Connecticut 27.47 22.18 +23.8% -9.1% 24.51 21.75 18.16 -4% 5 0%
Alaska 27.32 22.73 +20.2% +4.8% 29.41 23.04 23.90 -2% 0 0%
New Hampshire 26.91 20.02 +34.4% +15.0% 27.64 21.40 18.07 -1% 3 0%
District of Columbia 24.86 12.95 +91.9% +17.2% 25.98 23.70 20.47 -9% 1 100%
New Jersey 24.09 16.06 +50.0% +7.9% 24.61 17.90 15.31 -3% 49 100%
Vermont 23.93 17.05 +40.4% +7.3% 23.84 20.87 12.90 +3% 0 0%
Michigan 21.73 15.64 +38.9% +9.0% 22.99 15.80 9.29 -1% 10 4%
Maryland 21.31 13.14 +62.2% +12.6% 21.40 17.16 14.87 -4% 13 100%
Pennsylvania 21.13 13.68 +54.5% +12.1% 21.77 13.90 10.82 +0% 9 100%
Illinois 19.23 12.96 +48.3% +10.2% 19.32 14.05 10.42 -6% 44 71%
Wisconsin 19.05 14.15 +34.7% +5.7% 19.41 13.73 9.60 +1% 13 0%
Ohio 18.81 12.54 +50.0% +13.0% 19.38 13.61 10.23 +25% 74 100%
Delaware 17.98 12.40 +45.0% +7.1% 18.70 13.99 11.56 -3% 0 100%
Indiana 17.04 12.61 +35.2% +8.6% 17.02 13.84 9.17 +9% 5 20%
Virginia 16.95 12.07 +40.4% +13.0% 17.64 11.20 10.07 +60% 239 99%
Colorado 16.80 12.26 +37.0% +8.6% 17.17 13.37 9.64 -1% 20 0%
Alabama 16.51 12.64 +30.6% +3.1% 16.33 14.83 7.96 -1% 6 0%
Minnesota 16.44 13.15 +25.1% +4.2% 17.20 12.70 9.78 -0% 9 0%
Texas 16.03 11.73 +36.6% +5.6% 15.91 8.60 6.77 +23% 117 0%
South Carolina 15.90 12.81 +24.1% +6.2% 15.76 11.86 7.86 +19% 3 0%
West Virginia 15.58 11.16 +39.6% +1.4% 16.31 11.64 8.26 +6% 1 100%
Georgia 15.48 12.10 +27.9% +4.1% 15.90 12.01 8.67 +20% 31 0%
Oregon 15.46 10.99 +40.7% +0.6% 15.92 10.59 8.38 +81% 97 0%
Arizona 15.36 12.53 +22.6% +1.2% 15.05 12.28 7.94 +28% 58 0%
New Mexico 15.34 12.54 +22.3% +4.5% 16.51 10.96 5.19 +4% 11 0%
Florida 15.32 11.66 +31.4% +1.9% 14.99 11.78 9.20 +4% 15 0%
Kansas 15.26 12.72 +20.0% +6.9% 15.47 11.77 8.33 +2% 7 0%
Mississippi 15.06 11.32 +33.1% +8.6% 14.43 14.00 7.65 +1% 2 0%
North Carolina 14.94 11.41 +31.0% +8.2% 14.95 10.61 7.95 +2% 17 3%
South Dakota 14.58 11.46 +27.2% +10.5% 15.15 11.68 9.45 +12% 2 0%
Iowa 14.55 12.65 +15.0% +6.1% 17.06 11.66 7.66 +11% 39 0%
Washington 14.42 9.70 +48.6% +11.6% 14.63 11.86 7.17 +14% 52 0%
Missouri 14.28 11.41 +25.1% +7.2% 16.02 11.17 8.78 +1% 13 0%
Kentucky 14.20 10.74 +32.2% +8.9% 13.80 12.64 7.49 +6% 5 39%
Montana 14.13 11.05 +27.9% +10.8% 15.57 12.89 6.99 +3% 2 0%
Wyoming 14.01 11.17 +25.4% +7.1% 14.43 9.82 8.78 +58% 6 0%
Oklahoma 13.81 10.20 +35.3% +6.6% 14.82 9.35 6.89 +36% 6 0%
Tennessee 13.80 10.94 +26.1% +4.2% 13.42 13.57 6.84 +1% 15 1%
Arkansas 13.74 9.86 +39.4% +7.9% 14.37 11.55 6.96 -0% 2 0%
Nevada 13.36 11.92 +12.1% +2.0% 12.72 9.36 8.69 +22% 36 0%
Louisiana 13.27 9.80 +35.4% +5.8% 12.87 11.76 6.58 -1% 1 0%
Utah 13.19 10.44 +26.4% +2.7% 13.31 10.38 8.58 +24% 10 0%
Idaho 13.02 9.98 +30.4% +11.7% 13.37 9.75 8.37 +10% 3 0%
Nebraska 12.92 10.72 +20.6% +8.3% 13.54 9.06 8.62 +58% 18 0%
North Dakota 12.46 10.36 +20.2% +6.8% 13.31 7.72 8.18 +63% 2 0%

2026 values are preliminary EIA estimates. YTD prices are revenue divided by sales across months; they match EIA table 5.6.B to within 0.00 cents. PJM share: residential MWh delivered by utilities reporting PJM as balancing authority, EIA-861 2024.

How much do data centers pay for electricity?

EIA does not publish a separate data center rate. EIA’s retail data has four customer sectors (residential, commercial, industrial, transportation), so data centers are counted as commercial or industrial customers, and EIA has tied Virginia’s surge in commercial electricity sales to “a concentration of data centers”. Nationally, commercial customers paid 14.04 cents per kWh in January to August 2026 (+31.4% since 2019) and industrial customers 9.09 cents (+33.0%), against 18.19 cents for households (+39.3%). In the top data center states, commercial prices in January to August 2026 were 11.20 cents in Virginia, 8.60 in Texas, 10.59 in Oregon, 13.61 in Ohio, and 12.28 in Arizona. These averages blend data centers with every office, store, and school, so they are not a quote for any single large customer.

For future prices, the load forecast matters. The monitor’s figures show data center load in PJM’s peak forecast rising from 7,927 MW for the 2025/26 auction to 21,470 MW for 2028/29. Our data center statistics report tracks national consumption and construction, and our AI energy consumption ledger follows what the largest tech companies report using.

What this means for MSPs

Power is now a line item that moves. For clients in the 9 PJM-majority jurisdictions, budget for residential and small-business electricity at the 2026 level, not the 2024 level: prices there rose 11% in a year, and the auctions for the 2026/27, 2027/28, and 2028/29 delivery years have already cleared at the cap, so the wholesale capacity price is set through the 2028/2029 delivery year. For colocation and hosted infrastructure, ask providers whether power is billed as a pass-through and how capacity charges are handled at renewal, especially in Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. For clients with on-premises server rooms, the case for consolidating or moving loads to cloud regions is now partly an energy-price case; quantify it with their actual tariff, not a national average. Keep the reliability side in view too: our power outage statistics show how often each state loses power, which matters as much as price for UPS sizing and generator planning. If a client asks whether a new data center nearby will raise their bill, the honest answer from this data is: it depends on whether costs are pooled through a regional capacity market, more than on how close the building is.

Frequently asked questions

Are data centers raising electricity prices?

Not in a simple state-by-state way, but yes through PJM’s capacity market. Across 51 jurisdictions, faster commercial load growth went with smaller residential price increases (Spearman -0.41). In the 9 PJM-majority jurisdictions, residential prices rose 11.3% in the year to August 2026, against 5.8% elsewhere, and PJM’s market monitor attributes $29.4B of capacity charges over four auctions to data center load.

How much have electricity prices gone up since 2019?

The US average residential price was 18.19 cents per kWh in January to August 2026, up 39.3% from 13.06 cents in the same months of 2019. Consumer prices rose 30.1% over the same window, so the real increase after inflation was 7.1%. Residential prices rose faster than inflation in 33 of 51 jurisdictions.

How much does a data center pay for electricity?

EIA does not publish a data center rate. In EIA’s data, data centers fall in the commercial or industrial sector, which paid an average 14.04 and 9.09 cents per kWh in January to August 2026. In Virginia, the largest data center state, commercial customers paid 11.20 cents and industrial customers 10.07 cents.

Who pays for data center electricity in PJM?

In PJM, capacity is bought for the whole market and passed to customers depending on how utilities and states pass on wholesale costs, so the cost is shared regionally. The Independent Market Monitor calculated that $6.3B of the $16.4B in 2028/2029 capacity charges, 38.2 percent, resulted from data center load, and argues data centers should buy capacity in a separate auction.

Which state has the cheapest electricity?

In January to August 2026, North Dakota had the lowest average residential price at 12.46 cents per kWh, followed by Nebraska (12.92) and Idaho (13.02). Hawaii was the most expensive at 46.41 cents, then California (32.58) and Maine (30.23).

Why are electricity prices rising in PJM states?

PJM’s capacity price rose from $28.92 to $269.92 per MW-day for the delivery year that began in June 2025, then cleared at the cap of $329.17 for 2026/27. The market monitor says data center load is the primary reason. Energy costs also rose: wholesale energy costs were up 47.7% in the first half of 2026.

Download the data. data-center-electricity-prices.csv (CSV). Licensed under CC BY 4.0: free to reuse with attribution to The Uptime Report.

Methodology

Prices. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861M monthly revenue, sales, and customers by state and sector (file updated 23 October 2026, data through August 2026; 2026 values preliminary), and EIA-861 annual data for 2019 to 2025 (file updated 7 October 2026). A period’s average price is total revenue divided by total sales for the months in the window, which reproduces EIA’s published year-to-date prices in table 5.6.B. To avoid seasonal bias, every comparison uses the same months: January to August 2019, 2025, and 2026. Latest-month and year-to-date sector prices were checked against Electric Power Monthly tables 5.6.A and 5.6.B (release of 22 October 2026). Prices are nominal; the CPI-U comparison uses BLS series CUUR0000SA0 averaged over the same months (as a cross-check, the BLS CPI electricity index, CUUR0000SEHF01, rose 42.7% over the same months, against 39.3% in EIA’s average residential price).

Data center load proxies. Commercial retail sales growth 2019 to 2025 (EIA-861, the measure used in our state atlas, where EIA has tied recent commercial growth to data centers) and de-duplicated data center sites from PNNL’s IM3 Open Source Data Center Atlas (v2026.02.09, OpenStreetMap-based, 1,207 sites). Neither measures data center electricity directly; EIA does not publish it by state.

Statistics. Pearson and Spearman correlations across 51 jurisdictions (50 states and DC), with two-sided permutation p-values from 10,000 shuffles (fixed seed). Ordinary least squares with commercial sales growth, PJM residential share, and 2019 natural gas share of in-state generation (EIA net generation by state, total electric power industry). Small samples, outliers such as DC and Hawaii, and omitted variables limit what these tests can say.

PJM grouping. From the EIA-861 2024 utility file, we summed residential MWh for bundled and delivery-only service by each utility’s reported balancing authority, and called a jurisdiction PJM-majority when PJM’s share was at least 50%. Seven RTO codes were grouped (PJM, MISO, ERCO, CISO, SWPP, NYIS, ISNE); all other balancing authorities count as no RTO.

PJM and IMM figures. Clearing prices and auction totals from PJM’s own BRA reports and press releases; data center attributions from the Independent Market Monitor’s reports, quoted from the primary text. PJM’s documents were retrieved through Internet Archive copies of the pjm.com files because pjm.com did not resolve from our network; file names and dates are in the references. The IMM’s attribution is a counterfactual (auction re-run without data center load), not an accounting of bills. Auction totals are cleared supply times price and, as PJM notes, are not the total cost to load.

Limitations. State averages hide utility-level differences. Capacity costs reach retail bills on schedules set by each state and utility. 2026 monthly data are preliminary and will be revised. Not advice.

Cite as:The Uptime Report. "Data Center Electricity Prices: PJM Home Rates Rose 11% in a Year, Nearly Twice the Rest of the US." October 2026. https://theuptimereport.com/data-center-electricity-prices/

References

  1. U.S. EIA, Form EIA-861M monthly sales and revenue (sales_revenue.xlsx). Accessed October 2026.
  2. U.S. EIA, State electricity data: EIA-861 historical retail sales, revenue, and price (HS861 2010-) and net generation by state. Accessed October 2026.
  3. U.S. EIA, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A (by State, August 2026 and 2025 (Cents per Kilowatthour)). Accessed October 2026.
  4. U.S. EIA, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.B (by State, Year-to-Date through August 2026 and 2025 (Cents per Kilowatthour)). Accessed October 2026.
  5. U.S. EIA, Form EIA-861 detailed data, 2024 (Sales to Ultimate Customers, with balancing authority codes). Accessed October 2026.
  6. U.S. EIA, Henry Hub natural gas spot price, monthly. Accessed October 2026.
  7. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index, series CUUR0000SA0 and CUUR0000SEHF01. Accessed October 2026.
  8. PNNL IM3 Open Source Data Center Atlas, v2026.02.09 (doi:10.57931/3017294). Accessed October 2026.
  9. PJM, 2028/2029 Base Residual Auction Report (July 2026), Table 2 price history. Accessed October 2026.
  10. PJM, “PJM Capacity Auction Procures 138,318 MW of Generation Resources” (14 July 2026). Accessed October 2026.
  11. PJM, “PJM Auction Procures 134,479 MW of Generation Resources” (17 December 2025). Accessed October 2026.
  12. PJM, “PJM Auction Procures 134,311 MW of Generation Resources; Supply Responds to Price Signal” (22 July 2025). Accessed October 2026.
  13. PJM, 2025/2026 Base Residual Auction Report (30 July 2024). Accessed October 2026.
  14. Monitoring Analytics (IMM for PJM), Analysis of the 2025/2026 RPM Base Residual Auction, Part G (revised 3 June 2025). Accessed October 2026.
  15. Monitoring Analytics, Analysis of the 2026/2027 RPM Base Residual Auction, Part A (1 October 2025). Accessed October 2026.
  16. Monitoring Analytics, Analysis of the 2027/2028 RPM Base Residual Auction, Part A (5 January 2026). Accessed October 2026.
  17. Monitoring Analytics, Market Monitor Report, PJM Members Committee webinar (27 July 2026). Accessed October 2026.
  18. Monitoring Analytics, 2025 State of the Market Report for PJM, Volume 1 (12 March 2026). Accessed October 2026.
  19. Wiser, R. et al., Retail Electricity Price Trends and Drivers: Data Update, 2026 Edition, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and The Brattle Group (April 2026). Accessed October 2026.
  20. California Public Utilities Commission, 2025 Senate Bill 695 Report (September 2025). Accessed October 2026.
  21. EIA, Commercial electricity sales have soared in Virginia, driven by data centers (5 May 2026). Accessed October 2026.

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