Data centers will cause higher electricity prices, study finds

Duke is also trying to merge its two NC operations into one entity. NC also gave Duke permission to pre-charge customers for infrastructure which isn't built, and has no guarantees of being finished. Specifically, power plants.

And before people say: this won't happen. It literally happened in other states with Duke, a company that continues to charge customers for years for plants it has long abandoned even breaking ground on.

If you live in one of the handful of cities with municipal power: hold tight. The prices are already crazy in NC when comparing Duke areas (almost all of the state) to the handful of municipal energy areas (Apex, Wake Forest, High Point, etc). Duke will have charges around $0.16-$0.25kwh with surge pricing doubling that easily. But the municipal energy areas often have flat fees, the cheapest of which that I found is $0.08kwh.

The research linked in the article said some areas of Virginia (where there are lots of data centers going online) can expect a 25% increase in energy rates. That's insane. People need to prioritize living in areas where the community cuts out the entities like Duke, or rightfully handcuffs them with municipal-level contracts to keep rates reasonable.