CNN's Matt Egan explains why electricity prices are soaring

On the September 7 edition of CNN This Morning Weekend, business reporter Matt Egan outlined some of the reasons energy prices are rising twice as fast as inflation.

According to The Guardian, a recent report from Climate Power found that “household electricity bills have increased by 10% since Donald Trump re-entered the White House.” Right-wing media and the Trump administration are attempting to blame Democrats and renewable energy, even though a greater supply of renewable power would bring costs down. Moreover, as Time reported, “a recent analysis by Heatmap found that, in states with higher adoption of renewables, prices have risen more modestly than average — or even fallen."

Egan notes that the biggest driver contributing to cost increases from the demand side is “artificial intelligence and the data centers that power the AI boom. … By some estimates, data center energy demand has tripled over the past decade and is expected to double or triple again by 2028.” On the supply side, Trump’s policies — including keeping aging fossil fuel plants online while rolling back and canceling renewable energy projects — are also driving rates up. For example, one such project is Revolution Wind, a wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that was expected to power “more than 350,000 homes” before the nearly finished project was halted on August 22 by the Trump administration.

From the September 7, 2025, edition of CNN This Morning Weekend

MATT EGAN [CNN SENIOR REPORTER]: If you look at residential electricity prices, you can see they're up 5.5% over the past 12 months. That is more than double the pace of the overall inflation in the U.S. economy. And this is exactly the opposite of what President Trump promised last summer when he was on the campaign trail, and he vowed to slash energy and electricity prices in half within 12 to 18 months. That is not happening — at least not yet. Just ask people who are living in the state of Maine, where electricity prices have skyrocketed by 26% over the past year. My home state of New Jersey, 25%. But it's not just the Northeast. Look at this: Wyoming, Utah, Illinois, and a number of other states are experiencing double digit percentage increases. I spoke to a woman in Arizona who told me that her electric bill has almost doubled over the past year, and she said it's really stressing her out because she simply can't afford it.

So why is this happening? Well, analysts say there's really been a perfect storm of factors that are combining to drive up electric bills, starting with, on the demand side — normally electricity demand barely moves. That's not happening anymore, in part because of the rise of electric vehicles. But the bigger factor is artificial intelligence and the data centers that power the AI boom. They are consuming enormous amounts of energy. By some estimates, data center energy demand has tripled over the past decade and is expected to double or triple again by 2028. On top of that, you look at the supply side, well, analysts say that the Trump administration's efforts to keep alive coal power plants that were slated to be retired, that's just adding to the cost here. And then you've got all the pressure from the Trump administration on clean energy — solar, but especially wind.

CNN's Matt Egan explains why electricity prices are soaring

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