The US Energy Information Administration expects the electric power sector to generate a record of almost 4,390 billion kilowatthours in 2026, up 2.7% from the previous record, its Short-Term Energy Outlook said on 10 November. The agency said the rise is “driven by growing demand from the commercial sector and hot temperatures this past summer”.
In the outlook’s Table 7a, commercial power sales rise from 1,503 billion kWh in 2025 to 1,600 billion kWh in 2027. That is 97 of the 151 billion kWh rise in total US sales, or 64%, by our arithmetic. EIA’s October outlook described the commercial sector as the one “which includes data centers”.
Business Pill · Grid Cost Allocation
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on who pays for grid costs. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss EIA’s November outlook.
The key insight: The US Energy Information Administration expects record US power generation of almost 4,390 billion kWh in 2026, driven by commercial-sector demand and a hot summer. In its November table, commercial sales, a sector EIA has said includes data centers, pass residential sales in 2026 and supply 97 of the 151 billion kWh rise in total sales from 2025 to 2027, or 64%, by our arithmetic.
Table 7a puts commercial sales at 1,557 billion kWh in 2026, against 1,546 billion kWh for the residential sector. In 2025 residential sales were higher, at 1,519 billion kWh against 1,503 billion kWh. So commercial sales move ahead of homes by 11 billion kWh in the 2026 figures, by our arithmetic.
For 2027, EIA forecasts residential sales of 1,539 billion kWh, below the 2026 level, and commercial sales of 1,600 billion kWh, up 2.8%. The agency said generation growth will slow to 1.2% in 2027 “as continued increases in commercial and industrial sector electricity demand are offset somewhat by lower residential electricity demand resulting from forecast milder summer weather next year”.
Total sales to ultimate customers rise from 4,080 billion kWh in 2025 to 4,171 billion kWh in 2026 and 4,231 billion kWh in 2027, according to the table. Of the 91 billion kWh added in 2026, commercial sales account for 54, or 59%, by our arithmetic.
US electricity sales to ultimate customers by sector, 2025 and 2027 forecast, billion kWh: commercial 1,503 to 1,600, residential 1,519 to 1,539, industrial 1,050 to 1,086. Source: EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, 10 Nov 2026, Table 7a; EIA October 2026 outlook says the commercial sector includes data centers. 64% share is our arithmetic.
What the Table Shows on Prices
The same table lists wholesale prices at the PJM Western hub at $60.09 per megawatthour in 2025, $87.97 in 2026 and $90.00 in 2027. That is 46% higher in 2026 than in 2025, by our arithmetic. At the ERCOT North hub, the table lists $37.33, $34.40 and $36.73 for the same years.
The commercial retail price in the table goes from 13.37 cents per kWh in 2025 to 14.01 cents in 2026 and 14.26 cents in 2027, 6.7% higher over two years by our arithmetic. Residential prices go from 17.24 cents to 18.68 cents. We have previously reported on nine utility commissions on the ballot as power bills rose, and on how a data center forecast added $5.7B to a $16.4B power auction.
Where the New Power Comes From
EIA said rising generation “is met primarily by increasing generation from renewable energy sources”. It expects 72 gigawatts of solar and 20 gigawatts of wind capacity to come online this year and next, with the solar share of generation rising from 7% in 2025 to nearly 10% in 2027. It forecasts natural gas at close to 40% of generation and coal falling from 17% to 15% as 13 GW of coal capacity is scheduled to retire by the end of 2027.
As we read the table, the growth in US power use through 2027 sits mostly in commercial buildings rather than homes: residential sales are forecast lower in 2027 than in 2026, while commercial sales keep rising. EIA’s November text does not name data centers; the link to them rests on its October description of the sector, and the table does not split out how much of the commercial rise they account for.
US Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook, 10 Nov 2026
“Rising electricity generation is driven by growing demand from the commercial sector and hot temperatures this past summer.”
Three Implications
FOR DATA CENTER DEVELOPERS EIA’s table lists PJM Western hub wholesale power at $87.97 per megawatthour in 2026, against $60.09 in 2025, 46% higher by our arithmetic.
FOR COMMERCIAL CUSTOMERS The table lists the commercial retail price at 14.26 cents per kWh in 2027, against 13.37 cents in 2025, 6.7% higher by our arithmetic.
FOR GENERATORS EIA said it expects 72 gigawatts of solar and 20 gigawatts of wind capacity to come online this year and next, and 13 GW of coal capacity is scheduled to retire by the end of 2027.
The framework says: “Companies that solve the power equation will dominate the AI era; those that don’t will watch their chips sit idle.”
As we read it, EIA’s forecast puts a national number on the demand side of that power equation: the sector that includes data centers takes most of the growth in US power sales through 2027. The framework predates this outlook and does not discuss EIA’s figures.
What Is Not Established
The November outlook does not break out data center consumption on its own, so the share of commercial growth that comes from data centers is not established in the table. The October outlook says the commercial sector includes data centers; it does not say they are the sector’s only users. The 2026 and 2027 figures are EIA forecasts, and the agency lists its next outlook for 8 December.
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EIA’s November outlook has the commercial sector, which the agency has said includes data centers, accounting for 97 of the 151 billion kWh rise in US power sales from 2025 to 2027, or 64% by our arithmetic. Its table puts commercial sales above residential sales in 2026 and lists PJM Western hub wholesale power 46% higher in 2026 than in 2025.
A note on sourcing. Forecast figures, prices and quotations come from the US Energy Information Administration’s Short-Term Energy Outlook of 10 November 2026 (text and Table 7a); the phrase that the commercial sector includes data centers is from EIA’s October 2026 outlook. Shares and percentage changes are our arithmetic from the table.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
