Have Data Centers Raised Your Electric Bill? Causal Evidence from the US
A new study finds that data center construction in the US has caused modest but measurable increases in residential electricity bills, with effects varying by region and local energy market conditions.
Background
- The title asks whether the rapid growth of data centers (the physical warehouses full of servers that power AI, cloud computing, and streaming) is causing electricity bills for ordinary US households and businesses to rise. This paper attempts to answer that question with rigorous causal statistics, rather than just correlation.