Authroed by Athan Koutsiouroumbas via RealClearPennsylvania,
Electric bills may be the pivotal issue of Pennsylvania’s 2026 Midterm.
Don’t believe me?
Just look eastward in New Jersey.
A near majority of digital ads are focused on defining who is to blame for New Jersey’s escalating electric prices in a heated, competitive race for governor. Just as many likely run on television.
The Democratic gubernatorial candidate, incumbent U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, is blamed for backing the status quo, resulting in skyrocketing electric bill rate hikes.
Projecting toughness as an executive, Sherrill points the finger at utility companies and campaigns on declaring an electric bill emergency.
As the New Jersey blame game continues through the fall, it is unlikely that anybody will point out that the Garden State gets much of its energy from Pennsylvania in the first place.
Through the miracle of fracking, Pennsylvania has transformed itself into an energy juggernaut. Without Pennsylvania’s ability to make more energy than it currently consumes, states like New Jersey would likely face rolling brownouts on the coldest and hottest days of the year.
However, Pennsylvania’s ability to export electricity is about to change.
Quietly this month, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission released a report validating what a handful of insiders already know: Pennsylvania’s energy demand is expected to double in the next three years.
It does not take an economics degree to understand that doubling demand while keeping supply unchanged is a recipe for disaster. Meanwhile, there is no planned construction for any new baseload electric generation in Pennsylvania.
As a gas-fired power plant can take up to five years to build while nuclear power plants can take nearly a decade to construct, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the rest of the Mid-Atlantic states are poised to be in a world of pain.
Pennsylvania’s Gov. Shapiro may have reached his breaking point, announcing at a meeting of the Mid-Atlantic’s grid operator that if a plan does not materialize fast to bring new generation online, he intends to remove Pennsylvania from the regional grid.
It is the utility equivalent of “going nuclear.”
Within a matter of hours, Pennsylvania’s powerful executive mainstreamed what was once considered a fringe policy. Seceding the Keystone State from the regional power grid of the Northeastern United States would be like the United States withdrawing from NATO.
With 86% of likely voters concerned about their electric bill, Gov. Shapiro is wise to get ahead of the issue. Finger pointing can only get incumbents so far before even greater rate hikes take effect next year. If Pennsylvania wants to avoid crisis, policymakers must move beyond blame and act.
Fortunately, there is some low-hanging fruit. The process Pennsylvania uses to gauge pending energy demand is severely broken. In a little-noticed hearing in the Pennsylvania state legislature, a stunning admission came to light: Pennsylvania’s electric utilities may be double – and even triple – counting the number of data centers and other large energy projects projected to come online in the Commonwealth.
The rise of data centers deploying artificial intelligence is what has driven newfound energy demand not only in Pennsylvania, but nationwide.
Data centers and hyperscalers appear to be venue shopping for the most electricity and the fastest interconnection to the grid. These potentially inflated figures, fed to the regional grid operator responsible for managing the electricity supply for Americans in more than 13 states, have contributed to sharply revised projections for energy demand.
The byproduct is voters are already paying the price for higher energy demand that may not exist.
The Pennsylvania Legislature should compel action.
First, it should mandate a full audit of pending data center projections submitted by electric utilities.
Second, it should direct the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to revise how future demand is counted and reported to ensure that only substantiated projects are used in demand forecasting.
And third, it should insist on transparency from the regional grid operator about how those projections influence price-setting and capital deployment.
As far as actions the grid operator can take, it should take every step to approve all viable projects currently in the queue to get interconnected to the grid. Many of these projects have languished for years, for no clear reason.
With focus and resolve, these issues can be resolved by the end of the calendar year.
These reforms will paint a clearer picture of exactly what policymakers need to tackle in spring 2026 ahead of the midterms.
Failure to do so may result in candidates learning that their re-election was contingent on the electric bill, stupid.