US electricity prices could be set to rise
The expected surge in electricity demand from electrification and data centres for artificial intelligence risks driving up US power prices, warns ICF.
The consultancy released a report today forecasting a 19 per cent increase in wholesale prices for electricity from 2025 to 2028 from rising power demand. While households don’t typically buy power off the wholesale market, the wholesale price of electricity influences the rate they ultimately see in their utility bills.
“The whole notion of clean, affordable, and reliable [power] got incredibly, monumentally complicated in a very quick period of time,” said Patty Cook, ICF’s senior vice-president of market development. “All of that has huge implications for how much utilities will pay for power, how much customers will pay for power and how all those cost allocation decisions are balanced and made transparent to all the stakeholders.”
The consultancy expects a “sea change” in US power demand, with expectations that electricity consumption will increase by 8.3 per cent by 2028, up from less than 1 per cent annual growth for most years since 2010.
