By Lisa Jacobson, President, BCSE and Heather Reams, President and CEO, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions

America is in a new era of energy demand growth—and we have the potential to meet the moment. Every day, new technology comes online that powers our homes, military installations and infrastructure. This presents us with a choice: build or get left behind, because the development of new technology like data centers shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, according to the newly released 2026 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook from the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) and BloombergNEF, data centers are now a dominant force behind rising power demand in the United States and the associated impact on grid constraints and electricity prices.

Across the board, development continues to rise: Demand has grown more than 400% in the past 10 years and 150% in the last five. Through the first quarter of 2025, a cumulative 23 GW of data center IT capacity was live in the United States, and an additional 48 GW was under construction or committed. Including early-stage announcements, that number becomes 236 GW of power-hungry data centers.

Amid data center load growth and a broader political focus on affordability, electricity costs are increasingly top of mind for policymakers. Wholesale power prices increased sharply in the natural gas-heavy Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, reflecting higher gas prices, pressure on capacity markets and grid constraints. Prices rose 62% in New York State, 60% in New England and 45% in PJM, the largest regional transmission organization that coordinates wholesale electricity across 13 states and the District of Columbia. Despite growing attention, retail price increases were more gradual on average at 2.3% year-on-year. Over the past decade, U.S. residential electricity prices have risen 32%.

Real the full article in RealClearEnergy.