Downed power lines block the road after Hurricane Wilma on October 24, 2005, in Pahokee, Florida.

Electricity and gas prices have been rising fast, and they’re headed even higher.

Those are the conclusions of two recent reports about spiraling utility bills, one looking at the past, the other foretelling the future.

Household utility costs spiked by 41% between 2020 and 2025, according to a September analysis by J.D. Power, based on prices for electricity, gas and water in the second quarter of each year.

That means utility bills are rising faster than inflation. Overall consumer prices are roughly 24% higher now than in early 2020, according to Bankrate.

The average household paid $184 a month for electricity, $141 for gas and $99 for water in the second quarter of this year, J.D. Power reports. Together, those monthly costs are up $122 since 2020.

More than 40 states face higher utility bills

A second report suggests more rate hikes are coming.

More than 100 gas and electric companies have raised rates or proposed increases for this year or 2026, according to a September report from the Center for American Progress, a liberal public-policy nonprofit.

Residents in more than 40 states face higher utility bills, the report says. A few examples:

Southern California Edison has requested rate increases totaling 19% for 5 million California customers between 2025 and 2028, a cumulative increase of $33 per customer, according to the report.

Consolidated Edison has requested 13% rate increases in 2026 for 3.6 million New Yorkers, hiking the average bill by $26.60.

Spire Inc. raised rates by 15% in October for 1.2 million Missourians, an average monthly increase of $14, the report says.

Anger is spreading over rising utility bills

Furor over rising utility bills has emerged as an issue in gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia and could shape the 2026 midterms, according to The Washington Post.

“Anyone else’s electric bill insane these days?” one Reddit user asked in a recent post to the community r/florida. “This is the HIGHEST it has EVER been in my life.”

It’s one thing if a utility raises your rates and then delivers better service.

But it’s hard to measure marginal gains in gas or electricity service: It’s on, or it’s off. And customers across much of the country are experiencing more outages in recent years, J.D. Power reports.

“Customers don’t mind paying more if they’re receiving more,” said Ramah Vaughn, director of utilities intelligence at J.D. Power. “What we’ve been seeing is, these rates have been increasing, but customers are not getting more.”

Here's why your electric bill is going up

Inflation is a fact of life, especially in recent years. But two specific trends are driving up prices in the gas and electric industries, Vaughn said.

One is climate change. Global warming has accelerated the pace of natural disasters across America: Floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards and such.

Disasters can trigger costly repairs to the power grid. Utilities pass those costs on to customers.

“When you have these natural disasters, rates increase. And there’s a sense of frustration around the rates increasing,” Vaughn said. “When there’s a blizzard and rates increase a year later, everybody forgets about the blizzard.”

The second, less obvious factor in rising electric bills is AI. Demand for electricity is surging at data centers that support artificial intelligence.

“In the span of, I’ll call it 24 months, data centers went from something no one talked about to something everyone’s talking about,” said Todd Snitchler, president of the Electric Power Supply Association, a group that represents wholesale power generators.

Data centers have been around for years. But in the AI era, they’re “coming online at an unprecedented rate,” powering everything from Google searches to AI-assisted job letters, said Lucero Marquez, associate director for federal climate policy at the Center for American Progress.

“With AI and data centers, that growth is at such a sharper trajectory than anything else we’ve seen in recent years,” Vaughn said. “That is a major catalyst for increases in monthly bill amounts, and there’s no end in sight.”

Power demands from data centers strain aging infrastructure, compelling utilities to spend billions of dollars on upgrades. They pass those costs on to residential customers.

“The U.S. electric grid is aging,” Marquez said. “Much of the system was built decades ago.”

Electric companies will spend a projected $1.1 trillion between 2025 and 2029 on energy grid upgrades, according to a report from the Edison Electric Institute, an industry association.

The costs of upgrading utility infrastructure are climbing, as well. And those costs are poised to rise further.

There’s a national shortage of transformers, a key component in the electrical grid, the Center for American Progress reports. The Trump administration’s tariff campaign could worsen the shortage: Most transformers are imported.

Voices in the power industry note other factors raising electric bills, such as state-level mandates for clean energy. The American Progress report counters that clean energy is cheaper in the long run than fossil fuels.

Rising utility bills are straining household budgets

Rising utility bills are stressing household budgets. Monthly gas, electric and water service now eat up 6.3% of the typical household’s income, J.D. Power reports, up from 4.5% in 2020.

A September survey by Payless Power, a Texas utility, found that two-fifths of low-income households have faced overdue electric bills in the past year. One in three low-income homes received shutoff notices.

The survey reached 1,069 Americans, of whom 43% lived in low-income homes, with less than $56,600 in annual income.

“It’s becoming more common for families to skip their medication, fall behind on rent, or go without phone service, just so they can keep the power on,” said Brandon Young, CEO of Payless Power.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is AI making my electric bill higher? Here's the surprising answer.

Reporting by Daniel de Visé, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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