Lone Star Data Centers Investigative Series – Part 1
An extra $27 a month in Ohio. Nearly $28 more for a standard household bill in part of New Jersey. Another $10.60 for the average residential customer in northern Illinois.
Those dollar amounts show how rising electricity supply costs are reaching household budgets as data centers expand. Utilities and regulators identify the industry’s growing demand as a contributor, although power shortages, infrastructure spending, and other expenses also influence what families pay.
For residents of Seagoville, Crandall, and Combine, the strongest warning comes from communities where those increases have already reached bills.
The evidence does not establish a specific data-center surcharge for local households, but it shows that residents do not need to live beside a server campus to help pay for a region’s growing electricity needs.
New Jersey: Same Usage, Higher Bills
New Jersey regulators provided unusually clear comparisons when announcing electricity supply costs taking effect in June 2025. Each example used the same monthly consumption: 650 kilowatt-hours.
For Atlantic City Electric customers, the illustrated bill rose from $162.60 to $190.62, an increase of $28.02. Jersey Central Power & Light’s example increased from $112.25 to $134.92, adding $22.67.
PSE&G’s comparison climbed from $155.84 to $182.71, a $26.87 increase. Rockland Electric’s rose from $140.16 to $165.64, adding $25.48.
The changes represented increases of approximately 17% to 20%, without customers using additional electricity. At those monthly differences, the extra expense would total roughly $272 to $336 over 12 months of identical usage.
The state’s Board of Public Utilities identified regional data-center growth among the causes, alongside delays connecting new generation and problems in the electricity market. Those figures describe the overall supply-related bill increase, rather than an amount attributable exclusively to data centers.
Ohio: About $27 More Monthly
In Ohio, AEP reported that many customers saw the generation portion of their bills increase by $27 a month during summer 2025. The utility attributed the increase to an imbalance between available electricity generation and demand.
A monthly increase of that size equals $324 over a year if it remains unchanged. It represents an additional expense before a household runs its air conditioner longer or adds another electrical appliance.
Central Ohio’s data-center expansion includes facilities operated by Amazon Web Services and Cologix. AEP announced in June 2025 that it would install onsite fuel cells for facilities operated by those companies, with the customers covering the full costs of those particular projects.
That arrangement concerns specific power equipment. It does not mean residential customers were insulated from the broader regional supply-price increase that arrived that summer.
Maryland: Higher Prices Before Higher Usage
Baltimore-area customers received another concrete example in summer 2026. Maryland’s Office of People’s Counsel reported that Baltimore Gas and Electric’s electricity supply rate was approximately 12.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with about 10.2 cents the previous summer.
At an unchanged 1,000 kilowatt-hours, that difference translates to approximately $125 instead of $102 for the supply component—a $23 increase. At 1,500 kilowatt-hours, the same rate difference would add approximately $34.50.
Those calculations exclude delivery charges and other bill components. They illustrate the effect of the higher supply rate alone, rather than reproducing a particular customer’s complete bill.
The consumer advocate said the capacity portion of BGE’s supply rates increased in March 2026 largely because of data centers and projected data-center growth. It also identified higher energy costs, infrastructure spending, and extreme weather as contributors to household billing pressure.
Maryland’s experience reaches beyond facilities inside its borders. Its consumer advocate has identified data-center growth elsewhere in the regional grid as a source of costs reaching Maryland customers.
Illinois: Another $10.60 Each Month
In northern Illinois, ComEd announced that the average residential bill was expected to increase by approximately $10.60 a month beginning in June 2025 because of a regional electricity-capacity auction. That monthly amount equals $127.20 over a full year.
The charge appeared in the supply portion of customers’ bills. ComEd said it passed the expense through without a markup and did not retain the capacity payments.
Illinois, Ohio, Maryland, and New Jersey participate in the PJM regional electricity system. Its capacity market pays power suppliers to commit to being available when needed, and growing demand can increase that expense before all proposed data centers begin operating.
These examples therefore reflect a regional cost problem. They do not establish that one nearby building caused a particular family’s entire increase.
North Texas: Projects Nearby, Costs Harder To Separate
The industry already has a substantial presence within driving distance of southeastern Dallas County. Google identifies data-center locations in Midlothian and Red Oak, while Meta operates its Fort Worth campus and announced its Temple facility was online in July 2026.
For households served by Oncor, there is also a documented delivery-charge increase. Oncor implemented a temporary surcharge on August 1, 2026, adding approximately $3.63 a month for a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours.
The surcharge was scheduled to recover deferred revenues through the end of 2026. It covered the difference between earlier rates and new base rates that became effective June 1.
Oncor did not identify that $3.63 as a data-center charge. Its broader rate-review materials described expenses including storm damage, reliability work, and investments needed to serve a growing customer base.
The distinction matters for local families. A delivery increase is a real household expense, but labeling its full amount as the cost of Google, Meta, or another operator would go beyond the evidence.
Oncor nevertheless reported approximately 282 gigawatts of data-center connection requests in its queue at the end of June 2026. Those requests represent proposed demand, not electricity already being consumed, and cannot be converted directly into a household bill increase.
El Paso: A Different Financial Claim
Meta’s El Paso project offers a contrasting example. The company says its payments are expected to absorb approximately $40 million annually in electricity costs that other customers would otherwise bear.
Meta also describes approximately $500 million in new generating capacity and $410 million in transmission and grid upgrades associated with its investment. The company says it will cover the full cost of its energy use.
Those are company statements about the project’s expected financial effects. They do not establish that an individual El Paso household has already received a particular monthly reduction.
The distinction separates a promised benefit from an observed bill change. El Paso’s projected cost relief should not be presented as an existing household savings figure comparable to the increases documented elsewhere.
Virginia: A Future Household Price Tag
Virginia provides one of the clearest forecasts of what continued expansion could mean for residents. Its legislative watchdog estimated that data-center-driven demand could increase a typical Dominion Energy residential customer’s generation and transmission costs by $14 to $37 a month by 2040.
That equals approximately $168 to $444 annually, expressed in constant dollars rather than inflated future dollars. It is a modeled outcome, not a charge already appearing on bills.
The same study found that existing rates appropriately allocated current service costs to data centers. Its warning concerned the expense of meeting much greater future demand, showing how a large customer can pay its assigned bill while its growth still increases costs across the system.
For Seagoville, Crandall, and Combine, the documented examples provide dollar amounts to watch without assuming another state’s increase will repeat here.
New Jersey’s comparisons held usage steady, Maryland’s rates show how the same electricity consumption became more expensive, and Ohio’s increase added approximately $27 to many monthly generation bills.
No reviewed utility record establishes an equivalent data-center-only amount for households in these three communities.
For now, North Texas has identifiable data-center campuses and documented delivery increases, but no verified figure separating the industry’s contribution from the other expenses on a local family’s bill.
