Rewiring America Costs $1.3T. Guess Who Pays?

S&P Global projects US utility capital spending near $1.3T through 2030, driven by AI data centers, manufacturing, and electrification demand

18 May 2026

It is an uncomfortable truth that the networks powering America's artificial-intelligence ambitions were largely built before the internet existed. Nearly 70% of North American transmission and distribution assets are more than 25 years old, designed for a world of modest, predictable demand. Into this creaking infrastructure, a wave of new power consumption is now crashing.

S&P Global's Regulatory Research Associates projects that aggregate utility capital spending will approach $1.3trn between 2026 and 2030, or roughly $259bn a year. The money is real and the pressures behind it are genuine. Sixteen large data-centre projects are scheduled to come online in 2026 and 2027, adding around 30 gigawatts of incremental load. Manufacturing reshoring and broader electrification pile on further. Entergy, responding to a data-centre deal with Meta, raised its four-year capital plan by 30%, to $57bn through 2029. Ameren has committed $31.8bn through 2030, backed by 4.3 gigawatts of signed customer contracts.

The question is not whether the grid will be rebuilt, but who will pay for it. Electric bills have already risen around 37% since 2020, squeezing the headroom utilities normally use to recover costs through higher tariffs. Morningstar DBRS has flagged that traditional funding tools are under strain. The industry is turning to private capital and direct co-investment from technology firms. Entergy's deal with Meta, for instance, is structured to deliver benefits to the company rather than burden ordinary ratepayers, at least in theory.

Consumer advocates are less than reassured. A review of 51 utility earnings calls published in April 2026 by PowerLines found that much of the projected spending could still flow through to household electricity bills, in states where affordability is already an issue.

Moreover, the coming decade will test whether American regulators can thread this needle: enabling the infrastructure investment the economy appears to need, without shifting the bill onto the consumers least able to pay it. History suggests this balance is harder to strike than utilities' investor presentations tend to imply.