Home electricity bills are skyrocketing. For data centers, not so much | Data centers are consuming more kilowatts than ever, but the price they pay for that electricity has risen only a little.
Home electricity bills are skyrocketing. For data centers, not so much.
Posted by Jumpinghoops46
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>Electricity prices in the U.S. are rising sharply, but the burden of rising bills isn’t evenly distributed.
>A Yale Climate Connections analysis of electricity prices has found that data centers and other commercial electricity users are consuming more kilowatts than ever, but the price they pay for that electricity has risen only a little. And industrial users of electricity are actually paying lower prices, on average, than they were two years ago.
>But between 2020 and 2024, residential electricity prices in the U.S. increased by 25%. In other words, people using their toasters, laptops, and electric heating and cooking at home are paying ever-increasing prices, while the data centers that are driving rapid growth in electricity demand are scoring handsome discounts.
>A word of warning: this analysis might make you mad, but hopefully in a productive way.
>Electricity customers are sorted into use types: residential for homes, commercial for businesses and data centers, and industrial for facilities like factories or refineries. The graph below shows how the prices paid by these three sectors have shifted over time.
>From 1997 through 2007, electricity prices for all three categories of users rose and fell at a similar pace.
>In 2008, that trend stopped. That year, electricity prices went up for residences but down for businesses and industries.
>Over the next decade, home uses of electricity became more expensive, while electricity prices for businesses stayed nearly flat.
>In 2021, the trend shifted again. Electricity prices for all three sectors began to rise steeply, but unequally. The gap between home energy use and business/industrial energy use became even larger. In the last two years, these differences became especially stark, as shown in the chart below.
We give too many lock prices for companies to come into an location is one of the reasons why prices havent really went up for many of those. At least with industrial use, you get work back, but with data centers, it doesnt make that much sense to as they dont employ too many people and have high over all use. To me, those prices should go up or they should help build out more grid to support them. They make enough money that they can. We’re also hoping the demand is there to make use of them as we are over building incase it takes off more so we have enough supply for demand.
We also dont require businesses to make use of solar – where a large amount of them would benefit the most from solar as they operate during the day and close for the night. I can still walk around most cities and point out a lot of locations and warehouses that could make the most of it.