Why are electricity bills going up?

Electricity rates are rising, and Trump is making it much worse.

For the last 20 years, electricity demand remained fairly flat, but now demand is surging, driven partly by artificial intelligence companies building data centers. Meanwhile, we are facing the unavoidable costs of modernizing our aging electricity system built decades ago and increasingly strained by extreme weather driven by climate change.

Clean energy is the cheapest and fastest way to meet rising electricity demand. But the Trump administration is taking a much more expensive, much more polluting approach by propping up fossil fuels.

Reason #1: Clean energy is cheaper than coal, but Trump is canceling clean energy projects

The costs of renewable energy like solar and wind paired with batteries have been falling for years as the technologies matured. Now, these forms of clean energy are among the cheapest ways to generate reliable electricity.

This should be great news for everyone who pays an electricity bill each month. But the Trump administration has been cancelling funding and blocking permits for solar and wind projects and transmission work that is needed to bring clean, cheap power to the grid. The president is playing politics – supporting his fossil fuel agenda rather than allowing for fair competition that would benefit all Americans.

Earthjustice attorneys are fighting efforts before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to fast-track expensive new gas plants over clean energy projects like wind, solar, and batteries that have been waiting years to connect to the grid.  Our attorneys also appear before public utility commissions across the country to make the case for clean energy and successfully argue against utilities’ proposed rate hikes for dirty, polluting power plants.

Reason #2: Trump is forcing aging, expensive fossil fuel plants to keep operating past their planned retirements

We are at the point where it would be cheaper to install local solar and wind power rather than continue running 99% of coal-fired power plants, according to calculations from 2021.

But Trump’s Department of Energy is issuing sham “emergency” orders to override decisions by power plant owners and state utility regulators to retire uneconomic fossil-fuel power plants. Earthjustice is suing to prevent this abuse of emergency powers. If the Trump administration gets its way, American households will be paying for this extremely costly decision in their electricity bills.

A recent analysis by Grid Strategies on behalf of Earthjustice found that the added costs of forcing these aging power plants to keep operating could exceed $3 billion per year. A utility in Michigan announced in late October that the cost of keeping just one plant – the J.H. Campbell coal-fired plant in Michigan – going through September 30 would be $80 million alone.

See how much forcing fossil fuel plants to stay open could cost ratepayers in your state:

Reason #3: Trump is using AI as an excuse to push fossil fuels

The Trump administration is using AI and data center energy demands as an excuse to gut environmental protections and force coal plants to keep running. We need to upgrade our grid with clean energy and ensure tech companies pay their fair share instead of raising electricity rates.

Utilities are rushing to build new gas-fired power plants to serve massive data centers, which can often use as much power as a small city. Your utility is paying up front for the immense costs of building those polluting power plants. Generations of customers could be on the hook for paying off those balances, unless utilities and regulators implement important protections.

Earthjustice attorneys appear before public utility commissions to demand provisions to safeguard customers as well as climate goals. Tech companies often negotiate secretive, special contracts for discounted power rates with utilities that shift costs over to regular household customers. Our attorneys argue that data centers must be considered a new class of customer so that regulators can ensure they pay their fair share.