Wednesday at the White House, President Donald Trump looked the world’s biggest technology companies in the eye and told them the free ride is over.
Trump’s new Ratepayer Protection Pledge will require major tech companies building artificial intelligence data centers to produce their own electricity rather than raising prices for American families and straining the grid we all depend on.
“We are telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs,” Trump said in his State of the Union address, “so that no one’s prices will go up.”
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Millions of Americans who have watched their electricity bills climb as much as 42% since 2020 understand exactly why this matters.
The AI revolution is real. So is its appetite for electricity. The International Energy Agency projects that by 2030, data centers in America will consume more electricity than energy-intensive industries such as aluminum, steel, cement, and chemicals combined. Utilities are already planning to spend more than $1 trillion over the next five years just to build the transmission and distribution infrastructure these facilities will require.
Under the current system, those costs are socialized and passed on to every household and small business in the service area. The tech company gets the profits. The family down the street gets the bill. The Ratepayer Protection Pledge begins to correct this injustice.
But preventing cost-shifting is only half the solution. America must also massively expand the power supply if we are going to win the AI race against China.
America already has tens of gigawatts of privately owned backup power installed across the country in homes and businesses. Most of it sits idle, waiting for a blackout. But when it is organized and coordinated, it becomes an extraordinary asset.
In one recent power emergency, 75,000 home batteries discharged 375 megawatts into the grid in just two hours. That’s roughly the output of a mid-sized power plant. In 2024 alone, Americans installed 4.7 gigawatts of rooftop solar, the equivalent of five nuclear plants. When paired with batteries, these systems become available on demand.
New nuclear plants and natural gas facilities are essential. But they take years to build. Home batteries can be installed in days.
Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge is a critical first step to providing the power America needs in the 21st century. It establishes the principle that corporations profiting from American energy infrastructure must invest in supply, not just consume it.
Now, governors, state legislatures, and public utility commissions should follow suit and require data centers to provide for their own power needs. Additionally, to guarantee protection for American families, data centers should be required to fund neighborhood battery programs for the families they affect. Working Americans should share in the upside of the AI boom, not shoulder its hidden costs.
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A populist revolt against Big Tech’s energy exploitation is gathering steam in communities across the country. Politicians who ignore it will face the fury of the families they left behind.
Trump has sided with the American people over Silicon Valley. State and local politicians would be wise to do likewise.
Sam Romain is the chairman of Americans for Energy Dominance, a grassroots organization dedicated to expanding U.S. energy capacity and independence.