America Is About To Need More Power—Millions Already Can’t Afford It, New Data Shows

America is about to need a lot more electricity, even as millions of households are already struggling to afford it, new data shows.

Residential electricity customers had their service shut off 13.4 million times in 2024 because of unpaid bills, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Texas recorded the most shutoffs in the nation, with more than 3 million residential electricity disconnections.

The figures come from a new federal data collection created after Congress directed the EIA to study residential utility shutoffs. The agency spent roughly three years developing the survey before completing the report earlier this year.

The first report lands after years of mounting pressure on household electric bills. Residential electricity prices rose 33% from 2019 to 2025.

The shutoff data puts a harder edge on that trend, showing what can happen when rising power costs reach households with no room left to absorb them—and just as the country is preparing for the next big jump.

In a separate report from the EIA, the agency estimates U.S. electricity consumption will rise nearly 40% by 2050. In its high demand estimation, the increase is closer to 50%.

Shutoffs can signal deeper financial distress

In 2024, utilities sent 94.9 million final notices to residential electricity customers, according to the EIA. 

Those notices are the last warning before a possible disconnection, and underlines how the number of accounts under pressure was far larger than the number that ultimately lost service.

The EIA cautions that the data measures events, not unique households. A single customer can receive multiple final notices, disconnections, or reconnections in the same year. So the numbers should not be read as a count of individual families.

Even so, the caveat doesn’t erase the warning baked into those numbers.

“The high volume of final notices and disconnections serves as an indicator of household financial stress, as these actions are specifically triggered by an inability or failure to pay account balances,” explains Hannah Jones, senior economist at Realtor.com®. “Because utility bills are essential recurring expenses, a rising trend in these figures can act as an early warning sign that families are exhausting their financial buffers.”

While this is the first year for the report and therefore doesn’t offer year-over-year comparisons, it does speak to the growing chorus of voices saying that the cost of housing—and specifically utilities—is becoming too great of a burden.

It’s also what makes the data especially important for the housing market, which has remained relatively stable even as households face higher costs for insurance, taxes, and other everyday expenses.

“Utility disconnections often occur before more severe housing distress, such as eviction or foreclosure, because utility companies may disconnect service much more quickly than the lengthy legal timelines required for housing-related displacement,” says Jones.

So, a missed utility payment may be one of the first signs that there is no longer enough room in the budget to absorb another essential cost.

To that point, the EIA recorded 11.4 million residential electricity reconnections in 2024—about 2.1 million fewer than the number of shutoffs—in a potential sign that some households were cycling through deeper distress.

Texas had the most shutoffs—but the problem is bigger than one state

Texas is, perhaps, where the numbers are hardest to ignore.

Residential electricity customers there experienced 3.02 million disconnections in 2024, the highest total in the country, according to the EIA. 

One of the drivers is simply the scale of the Lone Star State. Texas had roughly 12.8 million residential electricity customers in 2024, creating a far larger universe of accounts that could fall behind.

But the state also offers a preview of the pressures now moving through the electric system: fast population growth, hotter weather, and new demands on the grid.

From 2023 to 2024, the state added more than 1,500 new residents per day, according to the Texas Demographic Center. It also added more than 300,000 EVs, up from fewer than 10,000 a decade earlier. Meanwhile, major population centers like Houston endured record heat, driving up air conditioning use.

All of that amounts to a significant strain on the grid, which peaked in October when Texas recorded 344,318 residential electricity disconnections. That month, the state’s residential electricity disconnection rate reached 2.67% while the U.S. rate was just 1.04%.

Electricity demand is set to grow, adding affordability pressure

Texas is an early warning sign, but it’s not an isolated one. Across the country, electricity is becoming a bigger part of daily life.

After years of relatively flat electricity use, the U.S. is entering a new demand cycle. In its Annual Energy Outlook, the EIA puts the biggest driver behind that shift plainly: “Data center load is emerging as the dominant driver of long-term U.S. electricity growth.”

The EIA’s High Electricity Demand case looks at uncertainty around long-term computing needs and data center server power use across commercial buildings. In that scenario, data center electricity consumption rises sharply through 2050, while total electricity use also climbs across the economy.

That growth will require new generation, more transmission, local grid upgrades, and a more expensive system to maintain. For utilities, that’s expansion. But for households already behind on payments, it’s another possible cost pressure moving toward the monthly bill.