Data centres are pushing US power use to a record, and your bill is going with it

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s September 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook, released Sept. 9 and finalized against data through Sept. 3, forecasts that the United States will use more electricity in 2026 than in any year on record. Data center construction, alongside a pickup in manufacturing activity, is the main force pushing consumption higher, and the agency’s own tables show the cost of that growth already showing up in household electricity bills. The forecast does not account for anything that happened after its early-September cutoff, so it reflects the trend line rather than a single event.

A Record 4,135 Billion Kilowatt-Hours in 2026

The EIA expects U.S. electricity sales to total 4,135 billion kilowatt-hours (BkWh) in 2026, an increase of almost 2% over 2025, followed by another roughly 2% increase to 4,211 BkWh in 2027. Total generation is projected to rise from 4,430 BkWh in 2025 to 4,520 BkWh in 2026 and 4,596 BkWh in 2027. The EIA attributes the increase directly to data center development combined with rising industrial and commercial demand, rather than to weather or population growth alone.

Data Centers and Factories Are Driving Most of the Growth

The commercial sector, which includes data centers, is forecast to grow 3.3% in 2026 and 2.7% in 2027, and the EIA calculates in its electricity, coal and renewables outlook that this single sector accounts for 63% of the total increase in U.S. electricity sales in 2026 and 56% of it in 2027. Industrial demand adds a further 1.6% growth in 2026 and 2.6% in 2027, contributing another 22% and 36% of the respective increases. Between the two sectors, commercial and industrial customers explain the large majority of why national electricity sales are climbing rather than holding flat.

Texas Pauses New Data Center Hookups, But the Region Still Leads Growth

Texas has paused connecting new data center projects to its grid while state regulators conduct an audit of proposed projects, a step the state’s governor ordered this year. Despite that pause, the EIA still expects the West South Central region, which includes Texas, to account for the largest regional share of electricity sales growth in the country: nearly 20% of the nationwide increase in 2026 and close to 40% of it in 2027, as other projects in the region continue moving forward.

Residential Electricity Prices Climb to 18.2 Cents per Kilowatt-Hour

The EIA’s own price table shows the average U.S. residential electricity price rising from 16.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2024 to 17.3 cents in 2025, then to a projected 18.2 cents in 2026 and 18.6 cents in 2027. That is the specific line item behind the idea that record power demand is reaching household bills: the agency forecasts a real, continuing increase in what residential customers pay per kilowatt-hour over three straight years, tracking alongside the growth in commercial and industrial demand rather than a one-time spike tied to a single storm or fuel-price swing.

Natural Gas Fills the Gap as Coal Keeps Declining

According to the EIA’s September Short-Term Energy Outlook, natural gas is expected to supply about 40% of U.S. electricity generation in both 2026 and 2027, essentially unchanged from 2025, while coal’s share falls to 16% in 2026 and 14% in 2027 as coal-fired generation for the power sector drops 8% and 6% in those years, respectively. Solar is the fastest-growing source in percentage terms, with generation rising 21% in 2026 and 18% in 2027 as capacity expands from 151 gigawatts in 2025 toward a projected 222 gigawatts by 2027; wind generation grows a more modest 7% and 5% over the same two years.

Where the New Generation Capacity Is Actually Being Built

The PJM Interconnection, the grid operator spanning much of the mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest, is expected to account for nearly 45% of the growth in total U.S. generation across the forecast period, with natural gas driving the increase in 2026 and a mix of natural gas, coal and wind adding capacity in 2027. Solar growth, by contrast, is concentrated in Texas’s ERCOT grid and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region: the EIA projects 18 additional BkWh of solar generation in ERCOT and 13 BkWh in MISO during 2026, followed by another 20 BkWh in ERCOT and 11 BkWh in MISO in 2027. Together, those regional patterns show the record consumption figure is not evenly distributed — it is concentrated in a handful of grid regions absorbing most of the new data center and industrial load, with the national price trend showing up in bills regardless of where a household’s power is generated. Coal, meanwhile, is losing ground even as overall demand climbs: the EIA expects U.S. coal production to fall from 528 million short tons in 2025 to 516 million short tons in 2026 and 497 million short tons in 2027, with the decline concentrated in the Western region that supplies roughly half of the country’s total coal output. Domestic demand for coal from the electric power sector is expected to fall 8% in 2026 and 6% in 2027 as natural gas and renewables absorb more of the load in the Northwest and MISO regions, even as coal exports rise.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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