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Home electricity bills are skyrocketing. For data centers, not so much.
(yaleclimateconnections.org)
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
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I suspect that it's always been the case that bigger customers are able to negotiate better prices. 1 car a year vs 1000 cars a year? 200 pounds of bread a year vs. 200 tons of bread?
Also, isn't a steady state power consumption of a data centre easier to manage than homes flipping toasters on and off? I suppose that the inefficiency drives up the costs for home usage
Big customers lock in deals for a fixed price of Y for X years.
Smaller customers can also get similar deals but retail customers (normal people) rarely can lock prices for more than 1 year. Most pay spot prices.
Huh? I've shopped power companies a lot and I've never seen one that didn't offer a 3 year fixed rate.
That kind of choice is quite unusual in the US.
Then your area is better served. Large companies typically sign 10-15 year deals so my point remains relevant. Residential customers get slightly worse pricing, but much shorter deals.