The hunger of data centers to energy can increase all electrical accounts

Individuals and small companies have paid more for electricity in recent years, and their electricity percentages can climb even higher.

That is because the costs of the power plants, transmission lines and other equipment that tools need to operate data centers, factories and other large users of electricity are probably spread to anyone who uses electricity according to a new report.

The Wood Mackenzie report, a research agency for energy, investigated 20 large Power users. In almost all those cases, the company discovered, the money that large energy users have paid to electric utilities would not be sufficient to cover the costs of the equipment needed to operate them. The rest of the costs would be borne by other utilities or the utility itself.

The utilities “should socialize the costs for other Ratepayers or those costs absorbing would take their shareholders the hit,” says Ben Hertz-Shargel, the worldwide head of the schedule research for Wood Mackenzie.

This is not theoretical dilemma for utility companies and the state officials who supervise or reject their activities and reject their rates. The demand for electricity is expected to grow considerably in the coming decades, because technology companies build large data centers for their artificial intelligence companies. The demand for electricity in some parts of the United States is expected to increase by little or no growth by no less than 15 percent in the coming four years after a few decades.

The rapid increase in data centers, which use electricity to power computer servers and to keep it cool, has tense many utilities. The demand is also growing due to new factories and the larger use of electric cars and electric heating and cooling.

In addition to investing to meet the demand, utility companies spend billions of dollars to harden their systems against forest fires, hurricanes, heat waves, winter storms and other extreme weather. Natural disasters, many of which are linked to climate change, have made the outdated energy networks of the United States more unreliable.

This expenditure is one of the main reasons that electricity rates have risen in recent years.

American houses that use a typical 1,000 kilowatt hour per month About $ 164 paid on average In February, according to the Energy Information Administration. That had risen more than $ 30 from five years ago.

Dominion Energy, a great use of investors, based in Richmond, from, is one of those that Wood Mackenzie expects to spend more on new infrastructure than being able to repair the sale of electricity to data centers and other large users. More data centers are open in Virginia than in any other state.

Asked about the archives of Wood Mackenzie, Dominion said that on 1 April it submitted a proposal to electricity controls in Virginia because they demand that customers with large drawers pay their “fair share” of the utility costs.

“Insuring a fair allocation of costs and reducing financial risk are not new concepts for the company,” said Edward H. Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia, in testimony that Dominion has submitted to state regulators and provided it to the New York Times. “Tackling both the needs and the risks related to growth with electric customers with a high load with high tax factors is both a public policy and a regulatory priority for Virginia.”

An analysis of 2024 by Virginia officials concluded that data centers paid the full costs of the service received. But that report warned that the addition of many more large users of electricity could increase rates for all users if the State did not make policy changes to protect individuals and small businesses.

The Wood Mackenzie report has shown that some states have policy to protect individuals and small companies at higher rates. The most important among them is Texas, where customers can choose a power source that is different from the utility that maintains the lines that deliver electricity to their houses.

According to Wood Mackenzie, this scheme helps to protect individuals against paying schedule upgrades that mainly or fully benefit large users.

Mr. Hertz-Shargel said that many utilities also had programs with which large electricity users could buy emission-free energy directly from electricity producers such as solar and wind farms. Such programs, he said, can be re -formed to ensure that the costs of new energy projects are largely or fully supported by users responsible for large grid -upgrades.

The policy that has introduced states and utilities will significantly reduce the risks of distributing the improvement costs for customers with a large tax, but “they do not offer complete protection,” said Mr. Hertz-Hargel. “Only by removing data-center-locals infrastructure from utilities, such as having large taxes contract with third parties for generation through clean transition rates, are both Ratepayers and utility shareholders fully protected.”