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Home electricity bills are skyrocketing. For data centers, not so much.
(yaleclimateconnections.org)
Someone has to pay the billionare's bills
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
725 points (98.7% liked)
Technology
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Here’s the crux of the article for you.
In just two years, starting in 2022, residential electricity prices rose by 10%, while commercial prices increased by only 3%, and industrial electricity prices fell by 2%.
Even if you don't like or use ai, you're forced to pay for it
But why is it this way? Why wouldn’t they want to charge both groups more for a higher profit margin?
Wouldn't want to upset corporate overlords.
Partly because doing so risks that they might decide to invest in their own production instead, and therefore not buy any electricity from you at all which would result in loss of demand, and a reduction in overall electricity cost.
Like how rising a bus ticket fare by 10% means you will lose some customers because they decide to walk instead, so your profit increase will be lower than that 10%. Raise it too much, and almost everyone walks, and you sell no tickets.
And it's a lot harder to build your own solar or wind farm if you are a person living in an apartment building.
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It's easier to screw over consumers than businesses.
Busunesses like to complain. They have long-term contracts. They have a lot of purchase power. They're more likely tp swotch to a competitor. When they threaten, they're more likely to go through with the threats since they have both money to burn and employees to blackmail with pay cuts.
Among other things.
There's a lot of consumers, so those that do jump ship usually don't cause a big dent in profits when they do. Consumers are also less likely to jump ship in the furst place since they have only their extended family and their family lawyer to look out for them (if). They usually have "bigger" problems than the electricity bill: car payments, mortgages, school bills, you name it.
Again, among other things.
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The working class get the 'get fucked' tax on top of the costs. Companies get cheap power to make more money.
I'd like to see this graph with the EU power costs. I pay AVG € 0,27 per kWh now. Used to be € 0,20 before the attack on Ukraine began. That's a 35% increase.
It's what the maga working class voted for. That, and cruel deportations.
You think fucking over the working class is MAGA specific? Fucking us over is 100% bipartisan.
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Yes, I am Fucking Pissed at my energy bills for the last 6 months. Like WTH. It is like $500 a month vs what was $300 max. I told my husband... it is time to start investing in solar generators. We are getting screwed for some stupid tech boy.
I would love if this creates some kind of decentralized energy network. You know how you can sell your energy back to the grid when you have solar surplus? We should have the option of choosing the rate too. If they don’t want to pay our prices, they don’t need our electricity,
I don't know anywhere you can actually sell it back to the network, usually they just give you credits that deduct future payments, so you can't ever get money out of it. But maybe that's only some places.
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2024 and 2025 not included in their data.
come on Muricans, stop complaining and get a third job to pay for the slop machine until the bubble burst and the you have to pay for the bailout
stop complaining, remember "you are not there yet"
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Here in Germany we have balcony solar panels. They are just plugged into a socket - no electrical installation needed - and pay off quickly.
I have something like that I bought here in the US but the power generated won't power the whole home. It does charge my emergency battery though for when the power is out.
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How does the outlet work putting electricty back into it? You sure it's not a special outlet?
No. It is just wires that transport energy. Old power meters will even run backwards.
For safety, these panels have some electronics that switch them off when it is not plugged in, or during power outages.
Depends on the country iirc. But most European countries allow you to discharge 800 watt unless you install it on a separate breaker. Regular socket
I was surprised when I read about it too, but it's true, they quite literally just plug them right into the normal plugs.
It works because there's a certain tolerance on the German breakers that allow for power to reverse. The balcony panels take advantage of this. However this also limits the possible output to whatever the tolerance is, otherwise it would overload and shut off or worse.
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Huh that's neat, I didn't know they just plugged into a socket. From what I know balancing the voltage and frequency of an electric grid is extremely delicate business, but I guess it's fine since it's so much electrically smaller than the main generators?
Also stuffing an inverter in random small electronics is probably so much easier than it used to be not that long ago.
What about batteries? Could you plug one of those big, AC camping "powerbanks" in between the solar and the mains? So that devices downstream are able to run directly off solar energy without going "into" and "out of" the grid?
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Civilian bills increase while corporate discounts abound? Ya'll need to fuck someone up with the 2A.
The idiots are convinced they'll "be one of them someday"
Cue the "Fry, you arent rich!" Scene. Its very very real.
I have a friend that literally blames all problems in America on "The Poors" (his words) and when I try to tell him he IS the poors and is nowhere near rich, he doesn't listen. Doesn't believe workers should own the means of production because "when he owns HIS business, he wants to keep his money HE earned"
Brainwashed idiocy.
He rents, has a 20 year old car, is a bartender, and shops at Walmart exclusively. Also loves Grok.
America is doomed.
Always loved that Futurama scene, for the way it's perfectly in line with Fry's character and his amazingly broken reasoning facilities, while also just directly pointing out the bitter hatred of self, as a class, this kind of thinking always entails.
The AI data centers and crypto miners should be paying much higher rates than everyone else.
That's not how capitalism works.
just sayin’ this is still so incredibly cheap… 8c/kwh… australian electricity prices are 24-43c/kwh (obv usd vs aud but the aussie $ isn’t that weak)
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This shit is a failure of local and state governments, and the people who elect them. Now that AI costs are hitting citizen pocket books, many municipalities are fighting back.
"All politics is local."
In particular, its a failure of state utilities commissions, which have power over electric pricing.
Don't know about your jurisdiction, but we vote those people in and out around here. Well...
We used to have a quasi-private/public power company. County commissioners voted us out of that. (Still our fault.) We do still have such a water setup. For now.
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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.
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My city still owns the utilities and the council doubles as the utility board. They've been trying to privatize it, but it's very contentious. Rightly so.
God don’t I know it. Looking at 500 dollar a month electric bills and I’m possibly disconnecting my heat pump.
Where are you? That's what I pay a year, granted I live in a shoebox.
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ok damnit, how many more servers do i need to install.....
Indiana price increase in 2025 ~20% (I believe the new rates went into effect in November, and this does not include a base increase for having your house connected to the grid. I believe it was $10/mo increase making that % even larger.
The lowest rate I can find here in Texas was triple what I was paying last year.
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