The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects the average residential electricity price will hit 17.9 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2026, climbing from 17.3 cents in 2025. Power-sector generation is set to increase by 1% this year and by 3% in 2027. Much of that growth is expected to come from commercial and industrial demand, especially big computing operations like data centers. That pressure is mounting on households already struggling. Back in 2017, about a quarter of U.S. households faced a “high energy burden,” meaning they spent over 6% of their income on energy costs. According to Joe Daniel from the Rocky Mountain Institute, the poorest households were paying around 11% of their income just for electricity, based on federal data. “What’s new,” he noted, “is that power prices have now outpaced both inflation and wages, dragging middle-income families into the pinch.”