Goldman Sachs Research documented commercial electricity prices rising 6.9% in 2025. For context, that is more than double the headline CPI rate, and it is happening on top of the 8-12% increases that characterized 2022 and 2023.
Goldman Sachs Research documented commercial electricity prices rising 6.9% in 2025. For context, that is more than double the headline CPI rate, and it is happening on top of the 8-12% increases that characterized 2022 and 2023.
Most commercial organizations budget for utility escalation using a modest annual assumption – typically 2-4%. The actual trajectory has diverged significantly from that model. The result is budget pressure that compounds every year.
Here is the underappreciated implication: when prices rise sharply, billing errors become more expensive. A tariff classification error that added $2,000 per month to your bill in 2020 now costs $2,600 per month. The error rate has not changed. The cost has.
The structural driver – AI data center load growth driving wholesale capacity prices – among other constraints is not going away. The EIA projects commercial electricity prices to continue rising through at least 2027. In this environment, billing accuracy is not a nice-to-have. It is a budget management imperative. That projection has held up. EIA data now show commercial electricity prices averaging roughly 14.4 cents per kWh in early 2026, more than 10% higher than a year earlier, with the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook pointing to continued increases into 2027 as data-center-driven demand growth pushes wholesale prices higher across nearly every regional grid.