Jeff Guo

Cameron Ali is in charge of a big chunk of that grid of power lines across 11 states.

When Cameron closes his eyes, he says he can visualize the whole thing.

In your mind, is it colors or is it black and white?

Cameron told us to think of the grid as like the highway system, but for power.

If you want to send more power to new data centers, you have to build new lanes and new on-ramps and new off-ramps.

Which means that not only are Ken and Carol paying for the new black and red and green power lines that serve data centers in Ohio, they're also paying for power lines for data centers being planned in...

You know, West Virginia and Indiana.

And Cameron says there is just so much demand for new power.

Add that to the 10 or 20% estimate for the distribution part of the increase, and you still have over half the price jump unaccounted for.

So what's to blame for that biggest part of their increased bill?

That's after the break.

OK, so far, we've talked about the way data centers might be increasing electricity prices for our retired couple, Ken and Carol, in two ways.

Distribution, sort of the last mile of bringing power to them, and transmission, bringing electricity along high voltage lines from power plants to their area.

Together, those two account for something like 30 or 40 percent of the increase in their electricity prices.

Okay, time for a classic podcast move.

Jeff, to understand this piece of it, we actually have to go back in time a few decades.

Back then, in a lot of places, including in Ohio, utility companies were in charge of the entire process of getting electricity to customers.

So generation, transmission, and distribution, all vertically integrated in one utility.

So some companies would be in charge of distribution.

Other companies would be in charge of transmission.