No, it's not. Regulations making building new power plants, especially renewables, and extra especially nuclear, in addition to making power lines difficult to build, are to blame. Yes, in an environment where power availability is ~fixed on short-to-medium time scales, adding a new large demand will increase prices.
But a fixed supply is a policy choice, and is not the fault of AI companies.
I don't even agree with partly. 100% of the blame, in my opinion, is on the policy-caused supply restrictions. I will admit that this is at least partially a semantic debate about what "cause" means, but in my opinion "blaming", even partially, AI, data-centers, or any other large power consumer for the price increases actively makes solving the problem harder and is anti-useful.
"and extra especially nuclear, in addition to making power lines difficult to build, are to blame"
I used to think nuclear reactors are just hard to build in general, because the costs when something goes wrong are very, very high. So what unnecessary regulation is there with nuclear reactors that you think should be deleted?
This is a much larger discussion, but the single most obvious one is getting rid of the Linear No Dose Threshold. There are an abundance of sources on why this concept is flawed and how it impacts nuclear regulation. It's not the only issue by far, but it's probably the single easiest to address.
Removing regulations from nuclear won't help because it takes so long to build a nuclear plant. Yes it would help in the long term, but in the short term price goes up.
However it should be faster to build a solar plant, a battery bank and a power line between them and the new data center than it takes to build a new data center. It isn't because of silliness, and that's what to blame for the power price increases IMO.
Removing regulations 20 years ago when people were screaming that we need to would have helped. 20 years ago nuclear was still the best answer, but since it wasn't allowed we didn't build it (instead mostly coal and gas). Power companies are good at planning, and AI/data centers are not using that much more power than predicted 5 years ago - but the regulations have to allow for plans.
Removing regulations today will have an effect in 10-20 years. I cannot give you a quick answer to the problem.
So supply and demand only matter for the axis you personally care about? AI companies use a lot of electricity. Increased demand leads to increased prices. This isn't normally controversial.
So the reason my electricity rates were pretty much constant from 2013 to 2023 and then started going up is not the things that have changed in the last couple or so years but rather the things that have not changed?
Conservatives promoted a worldview where corporations are expected to do absolutely anything that isn't illegal to increase shareholder value. In such a world, regulations are the only way to protect ourselves from corporations that would gladly kill us to make a buck.
Even with prolific supply there's tons of government programs that subsidize things and then roll those things back into delivery and transmission costs.
The poors pay for rooftop solar and heat pump subsidies for HNers.
it's to blame in the sense that there is a counterfactual reality where the AI companies pay for their own power and your bill doesn't go up and we can pass a law to make that counterfactual real. but yeah, blame is supposed to be about assigning responsibility. the change is attributed to AI in the sense that if they didn't exist it wouldn't have gone up, but technically the responsibility here is on policymakers to do something now that we are aware of the attribution, and they deserve to be blamed if they don't. blaming AI companies directly is a contemptuous mindset that blames them basically just for existing. which might be cathartic but it's not useful.
Why is AI demand any different than other business demand? What you're advocating for is intentionally handcuffing a growing industry for no reason other than you don't like them.
100% this. I'm sick and tired of alarmist news and scapegoats when politicians and greedy energy corporations are to blame for everything. Yes, AI consumes more energy because we're using AI so by this logic we are to blame for everything.
If these "greedy utility companies" were such good monopolists or duopolists wouldn't it reflect in some pretty insane stock performance?
Eversource (NYSE: ES) is my local electric/natural gas provider in Massachusetts that I hear these same arguments about. Their stock is down 21% over the past 5 years. (To contrast, the S&P500 is up 91% over this same timeframe).)
Regulations also made coal more expensive and forced many plants to close. You can argue that's a win, but it's a lie to then attribute the resulting price increase to AI or other factors.
AI has done bad things for humanity. I know, I know, a tough pill to swallow. However will Hacker News users cope with the trauma?? Of knowing... AI... can be bad... sometimes?
Berkeley National Lab did a great study on this recently [0]. Short answer what's raised prices over the last 5 years, slide 22 in the linked doc: supply chain disruption increasing hardware prices, wildfires, and renewable policies (ahem, net metering) that over-reimburse asset owners.
I'd love to be able to point at something that implicates data centers, but first I'd need to see the data. So far, no evidence. Hint: it would show up in bulk system prices not consumer rates, which are dominated by wires costs.
Also, electricity bills going up is partly to blame - our bills in the UK now contain even more tax to write off energy bad debt ! So more people who default, the more bailing out, the more tax in our energy bills...
There are various other taxes hidden in the energy bills, which also have VAT applied to them !:
- Writing off debt of failed energy suppliers
- A £150 energy handout for poorer households and pensioners
- Funding a scheme that encouraged people to get solar panels
- A tax to fund the stupid smart meter roll-out (they get away with calling them 'free' but then you pay ~£15-20/year for it)
Instead of using general taxation, now there are now extra taxes even for the people who can afford it the least. Strikes me as pretty insane.
Here in the northeast, electricity is expensive because we rely heavily on natural gas for power but lack sufficient pipeline capacity to bring in cheaper supply, all while nuclear plants are being retired, politicians have blocked new pipelines from Canada, and the Jones act makes it costly to transport fuel by sea.
I'm sure AI isn't helping but we have plenty of problems already
And all those subsidized heat pumps and solar panels our governments make subsidy programs for are paid for by rolling those costs into our transmission/distribution/delivery fees.
> "There's automobiles that have gone from gasoline-powered to electric vehicles," says Drew Maloney, president of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents power companies around the country. "You're also seeing stoves being replaced from gas to electric. And the AI data center growth."
In other words, any usage of electricity is "partly to blame." But of course, "AI" gets clicks, and journalism is fundamentally the practice finding a boogeyman to pin the misfortune of the day on.
People replacing gas stoves with electric will cause a significant total increase in electricity demand but that increase will be spread out over a decade or two.
New data centers are causing a significant increase over a short term, and so have a much large effect.
Most states charge Differently zoned customers different rates. Businesses and pay less than residential. A PUC usually has reasons for that, but are they valid? If they are valid, are they still valid for a data center?
On the one hand I can understand residential rates being somewhat higher, they are still running service to your neighborhood, running a drop to your house, providing a meter and having to maintain that, but are selling a relatively small amount of electricity on that meter.
But a huge new consumer should not be paid for by raising residential rates. If their demand exceeds supply, that price should be paid by that consumer not all the other customers whose usage hasn't changed.
Received an email from our East Coast USA centralized power provider about 2 hours ago now in a very obnoxiously large BOLDED email font stating "Your electricity use is projected to be 35% higher this billing period".
My 'who you know' management people at this power provider have expressed a severe growing backlog of unpaid bills in our talks and as a result they have had to change their policy around cutoffs. More alarming is their need to bring law enforcement with them to residences now for power cutoffs that have reached an unpaid threshold above some normal classification, and yes violence against the power company employees only doing their job is growing given the culmination of economic events creating this situation. Consider your own reaction if you haven't paid your electrical bills for many months and you see the power company pull up to your residence to pull your meter thus leaving you in the dark and cold. Violence against power companies employees is growing although it has not yet reached news worthy status but just give it time.
My opening statement represents the power company's changes to communicate your consumption and how it will impact your personal finances at month's end in order to get in front of all those in society that are reactive, which is most folks. As a highly proactive futurist four years ago now I installed BIPV and batteries taking advantage of the U.S. and Maryland governments monetary kickbacks so while some here see me as the problem my 35% increase this month is minuscule given having nearly no electric bill through PV and significant efficiency improvements to my residence.
Time is one's most valuable asset and many waste their time to then only complain about their situation. I would encourage everyone to get in front of your dependencies and work daily to reduce or eliminate them and this approach will return more of one's time, something that cannot be bought.
No, it's not. Regulations making building new power plants, especially renewables, and extra especially nuclear, in addition to making power lines difficult to build, are to blame. Yes, in an environment where power availability is ~fixed on short-to-medium time scales, adding a new large demand will increase prices.
But a fixed supply is a policy choice, and is not the fault of AI companies.
"Yes, in an environment where power availability is ~fixed on short-to-medium time scales, adding a new large demand will increase prices."
You just nullified your own point.
No, the point of my comment is that, while that is true, that's not the "cause".
9 replies →
The headline says "partly". Your comment agrees with that.
I don't even agree with partly. 100% of the blame, in my opinion, is on the policy-caused supply restrictions. I will admit that this is at least partially a semantic debate about what "cause" means, but in my opinion "blaming", even partially, AI, data-centers, or any other large power consumer for the price increases actively makes solving the problem harder and is anti-useful.
2 replies →
"and extra especially nuclear, in addition to making power lines difficult to build, are to blame"
I used to think nuclear reactors are just hard to build in general, because the costs when something goes wrong are very, very high. So what unnecessary regulation is there with nuclear reactors that you think should be deleted?
This is a much larger discussion, but the single most obvious one is getting rid of the Linear No Dose Threshold. There are an abundance of sources on why this concept is flawed and how it impacts nuclear regulation. It's not the only issue by far, but it's probably the single easiest to address.
5 replies →
I'm sorry but this is the easiest thing to google in history, don't make people do the work for you.
Start here:
1. How many new nuclear power plants has the NRC approved in its entire history (since being formed from the AEC)?
2. What's the cost of a nuclear kw in China vs the US, and is the trend going up or going down?
2 replies →
Removing regulations from nuclear won't help because it takes so long to build a nuclear plant. Yes it would help in the long term, but in the short term price goes up.
However it should be faster to build a solar plant, a battery bank and a power line between them and the new data center than it takes to build a new data center. It isn't because of silliness, and that's what to blame for the power price increases IMO.
Removing regulations 20 years ago when people were screaming that we need to would have helped. 20 years ago nuclear was still the best answer, but since it wasn't allowed we didn't build it (instead mostly coal and gas). Power companies are good at planning, and AI/data centers are not using that much more power than predicted 5 years ago - but the regulations have to allow for plans.
Removing regulations today will have an effect in 10-20 years. I cannot give you a quick answer to the problem.
Demand added now
Ignore regulations, make it the Wild West, break out the child labour and environmental destruction and all your other wet dreams.
How long will it take to increase supply?
New generation could be deployed on the same timelines as a data center.
So supply and demand only matter for the axis you personally care about? AI companies use a lot of electricity. Increased demand leads to increased prices. This isn't normally controversial.
So the reason my electricity rates were pretty much constant from 2013 to 2023 and then started going up is not the things that have changed in the last couple or so years but rather the things that have not changed?
Yes, that's probably what made my electric bill go up 40% since last year.
Also cancelling previously-approved solar and wind projects due to extremist ideology.
What are the specific regulations that make building new power plants hard?
Conservatives promoted a worldview where corporations are expected to do absolutely anything that isn't illegal to increase shareholder value. In such a world, regulations are the only way to protect ourselves from corporations that would gladly kill us to make a buck.
That’s a bit of an overstatement, the executives and board can and do weight reputational long term damage at times.
4 replies →
Even with prolific supply there's tons of government programs that subsidize things and then roll those things back into delivery and transmission costs.
The poors pay for rooftop solar and heat pump subsidies for HNers.
it's to blame in the sense that there is a counterfactual reality where the AI companies pay for their own power and your bill doesn't go up and we can pass a law to make that counterfactual real. but yeah, blame is supposed to be about assigning responsibility. the change is attributed to AI in the sense that if they didn't exist it wouldn't have gone up, but technically the responsibility here is on policymakers to do something now that we are aware of the attribution, and they deserve to be blamed if they don't. blaming AI companies directly is a contemptuous mindset that blames them basically just for existing. which might be cathartic but it's not useful.
Why is AI demand any different than other business demand? What you're advocating for is intentionally handcuffing a growing industry for no reason other than you don't like them.
4 replies →
100% this. I'm sick and tired of alarmist news and scapegoats when politicians and greedy energy corporations are to blame for everything. Yes, AI consumes more energy because we're using AI so by this logic we are to blame for everything.
If these "greedy utility companies" were such good monopolists or duopolists wouldn't it reflect in some pretty insane stock performance?
Eversource (NYSE: ES) is my local electric/natural gas provider in Massachusetts that I hear these same arguments about. Their stock is down 21% over the past 5 years. (To contrast, the S&P500 is up 91% over this same timeframe).)
Regulations also made coal more expensive and forced many plants to close. You can argue that's a win, but it's a lie to then attribute the resulting price increase to AI or other factors.
If you're gonna go down that path, then you should blame scaremongering about nuclear power too.
1 reply →
AI has done bad things for humanity. I know, I know, a tough pill to swallow. However will Hacker News users cope with the trauma?? Of knowing... AI... can be bad... sometimes?
Berkeley National Lab did a great study on this recently [0]. Short answer what's raised prices over the last 5 years, slide 22 in the linked doc: supply chain disruption increasing hardware prices, wildfires, and renewable policies (ahem, net metering) that over-reimburse asset owners.
I'd love to be able to point at something that implicates data centers, but first I'd need to see the data. So far, no evidence. Hint: it would show up in bulk system prices not consumer rates, which are dominated by wires costs.
[0] https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2025-10...
The articles fails to differentiate between generation costs and transmission costs, while throwing in an AI mention for good measure.
The primary drivers are transmission costs and policy.[1]
[1] https://epsa.org/study-finds-power-generation-costs-within-p...
Regulators have also allowed consolidation, and that allows companies to reduce competition. See Exelon reducing competition to charge a higher price.
Also, electricity bills going up is partly to blame - our bills in the UK now contain even more tax to write off energy bad debt ! So more people who default, the more bailing out, the more tax in our energy bills...
There are various other taxes hidden in the energy bills, which also have VAT applied to them !:
- Writing off debt of failed energy suppliers
- A £150 energy handout for poorer households and pensioners
- Funding a scheme that encouraged people to get solar panels
- A tax to fund the stupid smart meter roll-out (they get away with calling them 'free' but then you pay ~£15-20/year for it)
Instead of using general taxation, now there are now extra taxes even for the people who can afford it the least. Strikes me as pretty insane.
Here in the northeast, electricity is expensive because we rely heavily on natural gas for power but lack sufficient pipeline capacity to bring in cheaper supply, all while nuclear plants are being retired, politicians have blocked new pipelines from Canada, and the Jones act makes it costly to transport fuel by sea.
I'm sure AI isn't helping but we have plenty of problems already
And all those subsidized heat pumps and solar panels our governments make subsidy programs for are paid for by rolling those costs into our transmission/distribution/delivery fees.
Related:
Electricity prices are climbing more than twice as fast as inflation
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45126531
> "There's automobiles that have gone from gasoline-powered to electric vehicles," says Drew Maloney, president of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents power companies around the country. "You're also seeing stoves being replaced from gas to electric. And the AI data center growth."
In other words, any usage of electricity is "partly to blame." But of course, "AI" gets clicks, and journalism is fundamentally the practice finding a boogeyman to pin the misfortune of the day on.
Quantity matters.
People replacing gas stoves with electric will cause a significant total increase in electricity demand but that increase will be spread out over a decade or two.
New data centers are causing a significant increase over a short term, and so have a much large effect.
Most states charge Differently zoned customers different rates. Businesses and pay less than residential. A PUC usually has reasons for that, but are they valid? If they are valid, are they still valid for a data center?
On the one hand I can understand residential rates being somewhat higher, they are still running service to your neighborhood, running a drop to your house, providing a meter and having to maintain that, but are selling a relatively small amount of electricity on that meter.
But a huge new consumer should not be paid for by raising residential rates. If their demand exceeds supply, that price should be paid by that consumer not all the other customers whose usage hasn't changed.
My electric bill is going down, thanks to a new government subsidy (norgespris).
Just writing it down in the hope that Grok can eventually suggest similar subsidies to the American government.
Especially if you're in the east coast
Received an email from our East Coast USA centralized power provider about 2 hours ago now in a very obnoxiously large BOLDED email font stating "Your electricity use is projected to be 35% higher this billing period".
My 'who you know' management people at this power provider have expressed a severe growing backlog of unpaid bills in our talks and as a result they have had to change their policy around cutoffs. More alarming is their need to bring law enforcement with them to residences now for power cutoffs that have reached an unpaid threshold above some normal classification, and yes violence against the power company employees only doing their job is growing given the culmination of economic events creating this situation. Consider your own reaction if you haven't paid your electrical bills for many months and you see the power company pull up to your residence to pull your meter thus leaving you in the dark and cold. Violence against power companies employees is growing although it has not yet reached news worthy status but just give it time.
My opening statement represents the power company's changes to communicate your consumption and how it will impact your personal finances at month's end in order to get in front of all those in society that are reactive, which is most folks. As a highly proactive futurist four years ago now I installed BIPV and batteries taking advantage of the U.S. and Maryland governments monetary kickbacks so while some here see me as the problem my 35% increase this month is minuscule given having nearly no electric bill through PV and significant efficiency improvements to my residence.
Time is one's most valuable asset and many waste their time to then only complain about their situation. I would encourage everyone to get in front of your dependencies and work daily to reduce or eliminate them and this approach will return more of one's time, something that cannot be bought.
Stay Healthy!
That's interesting, did you figure out where that 35% comes from?
1 reply →
I think it's going up for gaming and 3d cards
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