Virginia Residents Pay Higher Power Bills as Data Centres Consume 40% of State's Electricity

John Steinbach, a Manassas, Virginia resident, saw his electricity bill jump from roughly $100 to $281 in January 2026, despite no change in his household energy use. A Consumer Reports investigation published in March 2026 linked such spikes to the massive power demands of Data Center Alley, the world's densest concentration of server farms, which now consumes around 40 percent of Virginia's electricity. Data centres currently account for half of all new electricity demand across the United States, and residential prices rose 7.1 percent nationally in 2025 alone. Under existing utility regulations, the cost of grid upgrades needed to supply hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google is spread across all ratepayers, effectively shifting billions of dollars from ordinary households to some of the world's most profitable corporations. Critics argue that residents have had no say in this infrastructure expansion, raising broader questions about who should bear the cost of powering artificial intelligence.