Data centers driving up energy costs for homeowners, schools in Arizona [Video]

PHOENIX — A 12News analysis reveals the data center boom is the overwhelming cause of surging energy demand in the state.

And it’s not even close.

Arizona’s largest utility, APS, reports that a key metric of the power grid – “peak demand growth” – is rising at a rate 100 times faster for data centers than for all other types of power customers.

Many experts worry residential customers are vulnerable to shouldering costs incurred by data centers.

Warnings about data centers driving up rates for everyone

Both of Arizona’s two largest utilities say tariffs, commercial price plans and contracts ensure data center costs do not drive up rates for other customer classes.

“Infrastructure needed to serve these data centers is paid by the data centers, preventing any cost shift to our other customer classes,” said APS President Ted Geisler during a recent earnings call with investors.

But consider: