Electricity bills are lighting up more than just homes across America—they’re sparking political debates, organizing drives, and even campaign promises as costs surge well beyond the rate of inflation. On August 27, 2025, residents from Georgia to the nation’s capital found themselves at the heart of a growing storm over who’s to blame for rising power costs and what, if anything, can be done to stop them.
President Donald Trump, never one to mince words, took to his Truth Social platform on August 26, lambasting renewable energy as the culprit. He called wind and solar power “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” and declared, “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” Trump vowed not to approve new wind or “farmer destroying Solar” projects, promising to slash Americans’ electric bills by 50%—a pledge he made repeatedly during his 2024 campaign.
But energy analysts and industry insiders see a far more tangled web of causes behind the price hikes. According to POLITICO and the Energy Information Administration, electricity prices have jumped 13% since 2022, more than double the pace of inflation. The culprits, they say, are increased demand, an aging grid, and extreme weather—wildfires, hurricanes, and heat waves—made worse by climate change. Add to that the explosive growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, which require massive, energy-hungry data centers, and you have a recipe for soaring demand. Electric vehicles, another piece of the puzzle, are also drawing more power, even as the Trump administration and congressional Republicans move to restrict tax credits and other incentives for EV purchases that were approved under President Biden.
Natural gas, which fuels more than 40% of America’s electricity, has seen its own price spikes—driven in part by increased exports to Europe and other markets. The result? Americans are paying more for power, and the pain is being felt most acutely in places like south Georgia, where activists say utility bills now often eclipse rent payments.
Grassroots groups such as SOWEGA Rising are mobilizing. At their Albany, Georgia headquarters, organizers recently gathered to strategize around an issue that’s anything but abstract: “People respond viscerally to utility-bill discussions,” said Lethia Kittrell, a longtime organizer from Fitzgerald, Georgia. “The conversation is just beginning down here. But we’re going to do it. We’re fighting.” TIME reports that in Macon, residents turned out in droves for a raffle offering money toward their power bills, and on social media, Georgians are venting their frustrations—one TikTok user’s post about a $540 monthly bill has racked up more than 275,000 views.
It’s not just a Georgia problem. Across the country, the grid is groaning under the weight of new manufacturing, electrification, and especially data centers, which are now a fixture in towns big and small. Atlanta, according to CBRE, overtook Northern Virginia as the nation’s top location for new data centers in 2024. Georgia Power, the state’s largest utility, expects peak demand to rise by 8.2 gigawatts by 2031—a staggering 50% increase—driven largely by these digital behemoths.
To meet this surge, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) in July 2025 approved a plan for Georgia Power to extend the life of two large coal-fired power plants, upgrade its nuclear fleet, and build new gas and solar capacity. But the improvements could cost tens of billions of dollars, and critics warn that everyday consumers could be left holding the bag if demand projections don’t pan out.
“They’re not looking out for the interests of the consumer,” said Peter Hubbard, the Democratic nominee for the PSC district covering metro Atlanta. Patty Durand, who leads Georgians for Affordable Energy, echoed the concern: “All that risk transfers from them to us. No matter what assets are stranded, customers have to pay for it.” Even Microsoft, which has announced multiple billion-dollar data center projects in Georgia, has questioned the utility’s projections, warning they could lead to overbuilding and higher emissions.
Georgia Power insists its planning is meticulous. “We’re planning for today, tomorrow, and 20 years into the future in our planning processes based on the data from our customers that we talk to every day,” said Aaron Mitchell, the company’s vice president for pricing and planning.
Meanwhile, the political stakes are rising. Two seats on Georgia’s PSC are up for grabs in November, and for the first time, candidates are running on promises to cut electricity bills. Across nine states, utility commission races are suddenly hot contests, as voters connect the dots between their monthly bills and the shadowy regulators who set them. “This is no longer a niche concern among energy experts and advocates,” said Charles Hua, founder of PowerLines, a nonprofit focused on utility regulation. “At the end of the day, there are real human beings that set their utility bills, and so people deserve to know that there are people in their own state that have power over [prices].”
Nationally, the debate has turned sharply partisan. Democrats blame Trump and recent GOP tax-and-spending cuts for making things worse. A July 2025 Republican bill, critics say, slashed clean energy tax credits and imposed new sourcing requirements that will raise the average family’s energy bill by $130 to $150 a year by 2030, according to a report from Energy Innovation. “By quickly phasing out technology-neutral clean energy tax credits and adding complex material sourcing requirements,” the law will “significantly hamper the development of domestic electricity generation capacity,” the report stated. John Quigley of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy warned the law could eliminate as many as 45,000 jobs by 2030 by slowing construction of solar, wind, and battery projects.
Renewable advocates are blunt in their rebuttal to Trump’s attacks. “The real scam is blaming solar for fossil fuel price spikes,” the Solar Energy Industries Association said. “Farmers, families, and businesses choose solar to save money, preserve land, and escape high costs of the old, dirty fuels being forced on them by this administration.” Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, noted that more than 90% of new energy capacity that came online in the U.S. in 2024 was clean energy. “Blocking cheap, clean energy while doubling down on outdated fossil fuels makes no economic or environmental sense,” said Ted Kelly of the Environmental Defense Fund.
But some Republicans, like Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, are looking for a middle ground. Grassley supports a gradual phase-out of wind and solar tax credits and praised Treasury guidance that limits—but does not eliminate—such incentives. “It seems to offer a viable path forward for the wind and solar industries to continue to meet increased energy demand,” Grassley said.
On the ground in Georgia, the politics are personal. Residents like Chad Murray in Atlanta’s Howell Station neighborhood are watching transmission lines go up near their homes, fueling unease about both their view and their bills. “You can’t go back,” Murray said. “What they’ve done is irreversible.”
With so much at stake, the coming months promise more than just higher bills—they could bring a fundamental shift in how Americans think about, pay for, and even vote on the electricity that powers their lives.
