My electric bill came this week, and I did what everyone my age does. I read it twice.
Residential power cost 4.9% more in July than a year earlier, the latest federal monthly data show. Homes are paying about 18.2 cents a kilowatt-hour on average this year.
The bigger news sits in a forecast most people skipped. The Energy Information Administration expects commercial buildings to use more electricity than homes in 2027. That would be a first on record.
Commercial means stores and offices. It also means data centers, the warehouses of computers behind every AI chatbot. Their demand keeps climbing. Ours does not. Household use is close to flat, up about half a percent a year.
Those buildings are closer than you might think. Pew found that 38% of Americans live within five miles of an operational data center.
Every one of them needs power it can count on, day and night. That power is not ready yet. Lining up new power plants for them has become a business of its own.
One company doing that work is in Texas, where demand is growing fastest. It is open to small investors.
Where the cohort’s money sits this quarter, and where the power bill lands.
The uncomfortable part is who has paid so far.
Between 2022 and 2024, residential electricity prices rose 10%. Commercial customers, data centers among them, saw 3%. Industrial users saw prices fall 2%.
Homes took the steepest increase while their own use barely moved. Read that twice too.
Why would that happen? A big share of any bill pays for wires, poles and substations. Utilities spread those grid costs across customers, and state regulators decide the split.
PJM runs the grid for 13 states and Washington, D.C. Federal regulators have already pressed it to spell out how giant new loads connect. Cost is part of that fight. So is time.
The catch lands back on the kitchen table. Who pays for the new wires is settled in rate cases and, more and more, at the ballot box. Electricity prices were a central issue in New Jersey’s 2025 race for governor.
Election Day is 11 days away. Taxes, spending and retirement rules are all part of the conversation, and the national debt is past $40 trillion.
Plenty of people my age want a plan in place before the results come in. One firm wrote a guide on exactly that.
The arithmetic
Residential electricity prices up 4.9% in July 2026 from a year earlier: Energy Information Administration, Electricity Monthly Update, released September 24, 2026. Residential average of 18.2 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2026, commercial use expected to pass residential in 2027 for the first time on record, and residential demand growing about 0.5% a year: EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, as reported by Facilities Dive. Demand growth strongest in the West South Central region, driven by Texas data centers and manufacturing: EIA. 38% of Americans within five miles of an operational data center: Pew Research Center, 2026. Residential prices up 10%, commercial up 3%, industrial down 2%, 2022 to 2024: EIA data, as covered by Yale Climate Connections. PJM serves 13 states and Washington, D.C.; federal regulators pressing it on large-load connections: Reuters, December 2025. Electricity prices in New Jersey’s 2025 governor’s race: as reported. National debt above $40 trillion: Treasury data, as reported by the Associated Press, 2026. Election Day: November 3, 2026, 11 days after this edition.
The government posts its next monthly power numbers around the 24th. Watch the residential line against a year ago. Before then, find last October’s bill and set it next to this one. The gap between them is your share of the new grid.
Andrew
Boomers Trade is written by someone getting older right alongside you, and watching who profits from it.
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