According to the Business Council for Sustainable Energy’s 2026 Factbook, U.S. consumers spent “slightly less” on electricity in 2025 than they did in 2024.

The extent of that “slightly less” is not calibrated in dollars and cents, but you can see in the charts above ─ from BloombergNEF, which compiles the annual report ─ that total energy costs, which include gasoline, and electricity costs are wiggling down, though not by much.

Other charts in the factbook show that while wholesale and retail electricity prices have gone up and down over the past 15 years, they are not appreciably higher today than they were in 2010 ─ with some notable exceptions. After 2021’s dramatic winter storm spike, wholesale prices dropped in Texas, while retail prices are up in New England and California (though BNEF sees a 2025 rate plateau in California).

The factbook and its charts provide the kind of widely quoted data points often used to try to persuade consumers the U.S. electric power industry is working hard to keep their utility bills affordable.

But when I first saw these charts at an advance press briefing for the factbook Feb. 17, what quickly came to mind were the panel discussions I had heard on affordability and transparency at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Winter Policy Summit in D.C. the week before.

Affordability can be defined in many ways, depending on context. Affordability in the abstract ─ what a utility or regulator thinks of as affordable ─ may have little if any relationship to affordability as experienced day to day by consumers looking at electric bills that keep going up.

David Springe, executive director of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, talked about his 86-year-old mother, who had upgraded her HVAC system to improve efficiency at the home she has lived in for decades but was still seeing higher electric bills.

“There’s a level of frustration going on out there right now with customers not feeling like they can control their budget and control their usage, and no matter what it is that they do, their bill keeps going up,” Springe said during the panel on affordability that closed the conference. “This is a conversation we seem to have every year at NARUC. … This interaction with customers and giving customers tools and power and ownership is something we always struggle with.”

The pressing issue of demand growth ─ primarily from data centers ─ has only heightened consumers’ and consumer advocates’ anxieties, he said.

“The scary part to me [is that] the answer seems to be that … we’re going to build our way out — spend a lot of money building our way out of this problem — and I’ll tell you that does not give the consumer advocate community the warm and fuzzies.”

Springe pointed to the October 2025 forecast from the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for investor-owned utilities, that its members will spend $1.1 trillion in capital investments over the next five years ─ a figure that could already be out of date.

For example, in its most recent earnings call Feb. 10, Duke Energy raised its projected five-year capital expense plan 18.4%, from $87 billion for 2025-2029 to $103 billion for 2026-2030.

“Those costs are going to end up in rates,” he said.

‘Growth Must Pay for Growth’

Energy efficiency and better customer communication are the perennial low-hanging fruit ─ and as Springe noted, ongoing pain points ─ of the industry’s efforts to bridge the gap between different definitions and experiences of affordability.

According to the BCSE factbook, utility spending on efficiency programs ─ for electric and natural gas companies ─ has never exceeded $8.4 billion per year over the past decade, or less than 1% of the $1.1 trillion or more the IOUs will invest in new generation and the grid over the next five years.

Policy signals also are mixed. Currently, 27 states and D.C. have some kind of energy efficiency standard, setting targets for utilities to reduce electricity consumption with efficiency measures. Arizona is expected to repeal and revise its efficiency rules, despite broad public opposition.

Springe cautioned that communication promoting efficiency must be ongoing but balanced. If bombarded with messages about energy conservation, customers could tune out and not react to cut consumption in real emergencies, he said.

Matthew Ketschke, president of Con Edison of New York, agreed that while “it’s very important to constantly [engage] our customers on the value of energy efficiency, I do have concerns about going out right before either a high-load day for heat or cold and sending [an appeal to conserve]. … It gives the impression that we, collectively as the people responsible for their energy delivery systems, did not do our jobs in making sure that we have enough capacity for safe, reliable delivery of energy. … You kind of want to save that messaging for when … there’s no room for failure.”

If efficiency can be a hard sell, the challenge is even greater for convincing consumers of the potential benefits of building new generation and power lines to meet demand growth from data centers, calling for levels of transparency that are not exactly utilities’ or regulators’ strong suit.

The new mantra at the state and federal level is that “growth needs to pay for growth,” according to speakers at a separate panel on demand growth and large loads.

“Whether it’s a regulated or a deregulated area, you need to be trying to develop policies where new large loads are accompanied by new large generation, and you grow the system in a balanced way,” said Nick Elliot, senior policy adviser for the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council.

Several reports have provided case studies in which adding new generation for large loads has helped mitigate rate increases by spreading the fixed system costs of utility bills to a larger customer base. The caveat is that “there are obviously a lot of different models for connecting these loads … [which] may not be replicable and scalable in every scenario,” said Lakin Garth, director of emerging technologies for the Smart Electric Power Alliance.

Trump’s Election Year Ploy

How these ideas play out at the state level is very much a moving target. A map and database compiled by SEPA and the NC Clean Energy Technology Center show that individual states, their regulators, utilities and high-tech customers are trying out different approaches.

According to Christopher Ayers, executive director of public staff and consumer advocate for the North Carolina Utilities Commission, it is too early to say if the various rate structures or contracts being proposed will consistently or substantially lower rates.

Transparency is critical, so the public can understand any proposed rate structures or other regulations on large loads, Ayers said.

Jose Esparza, senior vice president for public policy at Arizona Public Service, pitched for his company’s model, which uses a formula to allocate costs to large load customers so they pay 45% of the utility’s requested rate increase, compared to 14% for residential customers. APS is also providing “special contracts” for data centers looking for fast-track interconnection and service.

“What we’re offering is what we’re calling a subscription rate, where you’ll take a portfolio of resources,” he said. “The customer will have to put up a certain amount of collateral, agree to pay a 20-year or 15-year agreement, to pay down and appreciate those costs as much as possible.”

APS is facing opposition to its special contracts from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a former utility commissioner who argues they lack transparency and public oversight. APS customers might also not see a 14% rate increase as particularly affordable, she notes.

The call for transparency could be opening a new front in industry and regulatory debates, where definitions are again varied and subjective.

“We can say growth pays for growth, [but consumers] are not really understanding that because there is a national narrative going around on both sides of the aisle that’s convincing folks that that’s not really happening,” Esparza said. “Utilities and large load customers have to do a better job of partnering with their regulators and our customers to ensure them that we are taking this seriously.”

Briana Kobor, head of energy market innovation for Google, agreed that “transparency is key. We are screaming from the rooftops that we are here to pay our fair share of costs. Help us to show that to the public and to the regulatory ecosystem. … The math is different in every single jurisdiction. Maybe [the data center share] is 70%; maybe it’s 80%. Maybe it’s 12 years; maybe it’s 15 years. Behind that minimum revenue guarantee is a math problem, and it should be compared with what your rate is and what your marginal costs are, what you are going to be investing in, and it’s a conversation that we’re going to be having for years and years to come.”

All of which makes President Donald Trump’s State of the Union announcement of a “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” committing the AI giants to providing their own data center power, little more than an election-year ploy aimed at co-opting and taking credit for the hard, innovative work being done on the ground.

Electricity Value vs. Cost

And, as the consumer advocates are saying, it is too early to gauge the impact of the state-level initiatives, let alone a vague federal effort.

“Once there is a large load tariff in place, the load projections kind of drop,” North Carolina’s Ayers said. “It’s because now you’re able to quantify impact; now you’re going to have to start putting money where your proposal is … and that has an inherent heightening effect in terms of our need to sharpen our pencils and get to that number. … There’s also a perception amongst the consumer advocate community that large load is still running around from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, trying to find the best deal.”

The bottom line is that, at least for the near term, electric bills are going up, and definitions and perceptions of affordability will have to evolve.

Morgan Scott, vice president of global partnerships and outreach at the Electric Power Research Institute, said that as the cost of electricity goes up, so does its value, which should be a key theme in industry messaging to customers.

The bring-your-own-power imperative for hyperscalers may be a first step, but it raises some tricky questions.

Ayers has a major concern about long-term risk and costs shifting back to consumers. If we’re building 40-year assets ─ like natural gas or nuclear plants ─ what happens after a data center’s 15- or 20-year contract runs out, he asked. Will consumers be left to pick up the tab for the remaining 20-plus years?

That’s a rabbit hole the industry has yet to go down, he said.

The way forward for both affordability and transparency will involve figuring out what combination of technologies ─ generation, transmission and flexible demand response ─ are going to deliver the highest value and reliability for consumers, while raising rates the least.

While it is by no means the only or most reliable measure of affordability, the levelized cost of electricity remains a useful marker. On that basis, the BCSE factbook shows that renewables remain the most affordable, which is likely at least one consideration for the corporations and investors still betting heavily on them.

Not surprisingly, Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft are leading the pack. Corporations are all about affordability.