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The head of the US’s largest utility has warned that the nation could face blackouts as soon as 2027 due to the strain AI has put on the grid, saying electricity bill increases are needed to fund new infrastructure.
Calvin Butler, chief executive of Exelon, the largest US utility by customer count, told the FT that Americans could “absolutely” lose power next year, due to a shortage of power plants in the north-east and Midwest.
“We came very close, this past winter, to having to curtail power for about 400,000 customers on some of the coldest days of the year,” he said. “And it’s only getting worse.”
Butler’s warning comes as utilities and policymakers grapple with balancing the electricity needs of the AI boom with keeping the lights on and prices low amid rising inflation. US electricity demand is expected to grow by 39 per cent by 2035, according to data from consultancy ICF.
Electrical grid operator PJM, which operates across the north-east and Midwest has predicted that it will face a 60-gigawatt power supply shortfall over the next decade. At its last auction in December, the grid operator reported a 6.5-gigawatt deficit.
Electricity prices have risen by 7 per cent nationally since last year, according to data from the Energy Information Administration, with several large markets Exelon serves seeing even sharper increases: 17 per cent in New Jersey; 16 per cent in Maryland; 13 per cent in Pennsylvania.
Exelon, which serves nearly 11mn customers, is the parent company of six utilities including Chicago-based ComEd, BGE, which serves Baltimore and central Maryland, and PECO in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Rising costs are being driven by growing electricity demand, as well as volatile natural gas prices. The cost of upgrading ageing and weather-damaged grids is also a factor.
But utilities and Big Tech are bearing the brunt of the backlash, with politicians across the spectrum encouraging state regulators to scrutinise and even reject attempts to raise bills.
States including New Jersey, New York and Maryland have passed legislation to more closely assess utility rate increases and provide credits and financial assistance to consumers.
Butler said that AI hyperscalers were “caught flat-footed” and “under-appreciated the pushback” their data centres would receive. He added that utilities have been “made the scapegoat” for high costs.
Exelon’s subsidiary PECO in April withdrew its request to raise a typical electric and gas bill by $35 per month in 2027, less than two weeks after Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro lashed out at the Exelon company.
Shapiro had called the company’s $814mn profit in 2025 “obscene” and said that its latest attempt to “jack up prices” through a process known as a rate case was motivated by “pure greed”.
While Butler said he had “made my apologies” to the governor for not adequately explaining the rationale for the rate rise, he added that retracting the price increase would only defer higher costs.
“I cannot run a world-class system without investing in the system . . . I’m increasing my rate case because of the economic growth that you want,” he said.
“I can’t do that and not come in for a rate case. That is not good math, it is not good business and it doesn’t work.”
Exelon increased its four-year projected capital expenditures by $400mn in May.
Butler says he is being further hamstrung by limits on utilities owning power plants in several states where PJM operates. Since the 1990s, transmission and distribution infrastructure has been managed by utilities, while independent power producers own generation assets.
Advocates say the set-up allows for greater competition and protects consumers from bearing the costs of failed or over-budget projects.
But Butler said that independent power producers are not incentivised enough to build new plants that may take 10 to 20 years to reach profitability. Utilities, meanwhile, can have the advantage of being able to charge customers a fixed rate to help fund infrastructure projects.
Butler’s lobbying efforts to allow utilities to build and run their own plants have so far fallen on deaf ears. The Maryland legislature allowed two proposals that would have expanded utilities’ ownership rights to die in committee.
While he is optimistic about similar efforts in New Jersey and Delaware, he believes state legislators are underestimating the scale of the power shortfall.
“Change is hard, and legislators really do well in crisis. But right now they don’t perceive it as a crisis,” he said.
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