Bipartisan state, federal pressure on grid operators to lower costs

The Trump administration and a bipartisan group of governors, including North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, are pressuring the nation’s largest regional electric grid operator to rein in rising electricity costs. The coalition is urging PJM Interconnection, which serves states such as Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, and northeastern North Carolina, to lower prices as demand surges, particularly from AI data centers. 

“I am committed to keeping electricity cost as low as possible for families,” said Stein in a press release. “That means making sure data centers pay their fair share for the electricity they require to be generated. I applaud the US Department of Energy for this initiative and remain committed to making life as affordable as possible for North Carolinians.”  

“Data centers and their power needs are a real problem for electricity grids and electricity consumers in the short term,” said Jon Sanders, the director of the Center for Food, Power, and Life at the John Locke Foundation. “While the centers will pay for electricity commensurate with the amounts they consume, their very presence necessitates building more power plants, whose expenses get apportioned out to the other consumers’ bills as well, and that is the problem the governors and the Trump administration are trying to address with PJM.” 

At the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, President Trump outlined plans to cut red tape and let data center companies build their own capacity. 

“And we’re leading the world in AI by a lot. We’re leading China by a lot. I think President Xi respects what we’ve done, in part because I’ve allowed these big companies, building these massive buildings, to build their own electric capacity,” Trump said. “They’re building their own power plants, which, when added up, is more than any country.” 

Sanders echoed the statements from the president, highlighting the importance of reducing regulation. 

“If the facilities are able to build their own power generators, that would be the best solution for other consumers,” Sanders told Carolina Journal. “Unfortunately, permitting delays make it difficult to get power plants built quickly and add to their expense, plus natural gas supplies that could help the data centers power themselves have been constrained in the mid-Atlantic owing to pipeline permitting delays and denials, lawsuits, and other political obstructions.” 

In June of last year, Amazon announced it plans to invest $10 billion to launch a new high-tech cloud computing and AI innovation campus in Richmond County. 

Recent analysis from Bloomberg shows wholesale electricity prices in many parts of the US have surged dramatically since 2020, with some areas near large AI data-center hubs seeing costs rise as much as 267% compared with five years ago. 

The report tracked electricity prices at thousands of grid “nodes” and found that price increases are much more concentrated near regions with heavy data-center activity, suggesting a strong connection between rapid data-center growth and local electricity cost pressures. More than 70% of the locations with rising prices are within roughly 50 miles of major data centers. 

“It’s good to see a bipartisan agreement again on the importance of affordable electricity,” Sanders said. “We have been working at the John Locke Foundation to promote least-cost, reliable electricity despite the Carbon Plan law promoting inefficient, unreliable sources and closing working, baseload coal-fired power plants.” 

Senate Bill 266, the Power Bill Reduction Act, became law in June 2025 after the North Carolina General Assembly overrode a veto from Josh Stein. The measure removes the state’s mandate to reduce carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and is expected to save North Carolinians up to $15 billion in future utility costs. 

Duke Energy, the state’s largest electricity producer and provider, filed a plan with the North Carolina Utilities Commission last October projecting average annual bill increases of 2.1% for customers. The plan relies more heavily on nuclear power, natural gas, and coal, and does not include the use of wind power.

“Bipartisan state, federal pressure on grid operators to lower costs” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.