Expect a backlash. Residential customers pay double the industrial rate.
 

EIA Residential, Commercial, and industrial electricity prices
 

The US EIA report on Electricity Prices for September 2025 shows a big surge in prices.

Key Cost Points

• Residential: 18.07 Cents per kWh, up 7.4%
• Commercial: 14.06 Cents per kWh, up 6.3%
• Industrial: 9.02 Cents per kWh, up 6.7%
• Transportation: 15.26 Cents per kWh, up 16.6%
• Total: 14.23 Cents per kWh, up 6.7%

Residential customers pay over twice as much as industrial customers.

Some of this is explained by consistent industrial demand and contracts. But how inconsistent is residential demand?

Sure, residential demand is seasonal. And there are daily fluctuations. But there is also a consistent base minimum load that generally grows over time.

And industrial demand is not constant either. For example, GM is not producing cars 24 hours a day.

US Households Pay Record Prices
 

Record Household Electricity Prices
 

Bloomberg notes US Households Pay Record Electricity Prices

The figures highlight the rising pressure consumers are facing from higher energy bills, as increased power consumption from data centers and industrial users boost prices. While electricity typically fluctuates from month to month due to weather, fuel costs and other reasons, the data shows that power prices have been steadily marching higher for the past five years.

A notable part of the increase comes from natural gas. September prices for the biggest source of US power were up 30% from a year earlier.

CPI Electricity and Natural Gas
 

CPI electricity and natural gas prices
 

CPI Electricity and Natural Gas Detail
 

CPI electricity and natural gas price details
 

Electricity and Natural Gas Price Index Details

• Electricity: Up 37.4 percent since January 2020
• Electricity: Up 5.4 percent from year ago
• Natural Gas: Up 49.4 percent since January 2020
• Electricity: Up 11.9 percent from year ago

These price trends are ominous and they are about to get worse.

AI-Related Demand Is Soaring

Please note AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring

It’s an increasingly dramatic ripple effect of the AI boom as energy-hungry data centers send power costs to records in much of the US, pulling everyday households into paying for the digital economy.

The power needs of the massive complexes are rapidly driving up electricity bills — piling onto the rising prices for food, housing and other essentials already straining consumers. That’s starting to have economic and political reverberations across the country as utilities and local officials wrestle over how to divvy up the costs. Yet those same facilities are a linchpin of US leadership in the global AI race.

A Bloomberg News analysis of wholesale electricity prices for tens of thousands of locations across the country reveals the effects of the AI boom on the power market with unprecedented granularity. The locations and prices were tracked and aggregated monthly by Grid Status, an energy data analytics platform. Bloomberg analyzed this data in relation to data center locations, from DC Byte, and found that electricity now costs as much as 267% more for a single month than it did five years ago in areas located near significant data center activity.

Huge Backlash Coming

Consumers are already at a breaking point. Tariffs have raised prices on imports and are destroying jobs.

Someone has to pay the price of new data centers, and that someone is primarily residential customers.

Commercial customers are hit hard too, but they will pass on their share to consumers.

But that’s OK because I have it on great authority that Trump will fix everything in 2026.

Trump Adopts Chicago Cubs’ Perpetual Message, “Wait Till Next Year”

Please note Trump Adopts Chicago Cubs’ Perpetual Message, “Wait Till Next Year”

“One Big Beautiful Bill” did not resonate. Trump opts for “Wait Till 2026”

But “Wait Till 2026” is a fundamental mistake. When 2026 is bad, the message will have to change.

The beauty of a more Cub-esque “Wait Till Next Year” is the slogan never has to change.

Related Posts

March 13, 2025: The Amazing “Success” of Trump’s 2018 Aluminum Tariffs in One Picture

I hope you can take a bit of headline sarcasm because the true story follows.

September 6, 2025: Trump’s Aluminum Tariffs Seriously Backfire Already

Tariffs did not and will not bring production back to the US.

ISM Manufacturing Contracts for the 35th Time in 37 Months

Finally, please consider my post from today ISM Manufacturing Contracts for the 35th Time in 37 Months

Here’s a pertinent comment: “We are starting to institute more permanent changes due to the tariff environment. This includes reduction of staff, new guidance to shareholders, and development of additional offshore manufacturing that would have otherwise been for U.S. export.” (Transportation Equipment)

Hoot of the Day: That company is developing more offshore manufacturing and firing US staff, not bringing more manufacturing back to the US.

To repeat: Tariffs did not and will not bring production back to the US. They are a guaranteed job destroyer.

Steel and aluminum explain why. For every steel or aluminum job gain, there are tens-of-thousands of users and buyers of steel and aluminum, all of which lose from tariffs.

So, if you are rooting for more tariffs, you are a brainwashed, tariff-loving economic illiterate (like Trump and Biden) rooting for net job losses. Alternatively, you are someone in the industry spouting economic nonsense for personal gain.

Casualties Start

Please note Value City Furniture Goes Bankrupt, Cites Tariffs, 120 Stores Will Close

American Signature, Inc., parent of VCF, filed for Bankruptcy. Fallout in 17 states.

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