President Donald Trump pledged to halve electricity prices within his first year in office, a deadline that opinion writers and some former regulators say is rapidly approaching as U.S. retail power costs rise and forecasts show further increases.
Retail electricity prices have outpaced general inflation in the past year, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects residential rates will remain higher than 2022 levels through next year, with increases in the range of roughly 13% to 18%, according to an opinion piece by former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Neil Chatterjee.
Chatterjee, writing in a Fox News opinion column, said the president faces a confluence of rising electricity demand and policy constraints that together make the pledge difficult to meet. He identified rapid growth in energy-intensive technologies — including cloud and quantum computing, cryptocurrency mining, the adoption of electric vehicles, widespread streaming and the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers — as major drivers of increased power consumption.
A RAND Corporation estimate cited in the column projects global AI data centers could require about 327 gigawatts of energy by 2030; by comparison, the state of California used about 86 gigawatts in 2022. That scale of additional demand, Chatterjee wrote, will put upward pressure on prices unless supply increases substantially.
Chatterjee attributed some of the current price dynamics to policy shifts under the Biden administration that he characterized as limiting legacy fossil fuel production. He wrote that new Environmental Protection Agency emissions restrictions and regulatory changes across agencies have contributed to the retirement of coal and natural gas plants, reducing available generation capacity.
He also criticized steps by the Trump administration that, in his view, have constrained renewable deployment, including rescinded tax incentives for renewables, reductions in offshore wind leasing and curbs on solar tax credits. "Drill, baby, drill," he wrote, is useful for boosting fossil-fuel output but cannot by itself meet rising power needs, he added.
To meet demand and stabilize prices, Chatterjee recommended a broad mix of measures. In the near term he urged rapid expansion of solar power paired with energy storage and the use of natural gas peaker plants to respond to peak demand. For the medium term he advocated increased nuclear production, construction of more transmission lines and natural gas pipelines, development of geothermal facilities, deployment of grid-enhancing technologies, improved demand response programs and greater energy efficiency.
He also highlighted the potential for aggregated residential resources — so-called virtual power plants — that could draw from homes during low-use periods and feed power back into the grid when demand is highest.
Chatterjee noted the political stakes of electricity pricing. The opinion said consumers are primarily concerned with the cost of energy rather than its source and that failure to check rising bills could erode popular support as elections approach. The column also warned that limiting supply by favoring one energy source over others could expose the administration to criticism if prices continue to rise.
Chatterjee served as a commissioner and chairman at FERC and has worked on energy policy initiatives for Republican congressional leadership. His recommendations in the column reflect a view that increasing the total supply of electrons from a variety of sources and improving grid flexibility are central to keeping retail prices in check. The opinion framed the policy choices as consequential in the short term for consumers and politically significant for the administration as it seeks to meet its self-imposed deadline.
Officials at the White House, the Energy Department and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission did not provide new statements in the column. Independent analysts and utilities have said the interaction of rising demand, supply retirements, infrastructure constraints and regional market dynamics will continue to shape prices moving forward. The pace and scale of deployment for generation, storage and transmission projects, along with regulatory approvals and siting decisions, will affect how quickly additional supply can come online and how soon any consumer price relief might be realized.