Aug 25, 2026 · 31 min · 11 segments
Send us Fan Mail Scott and Jeff speak with Brandon Arnold , the Executive Vice President of the National Taxpayer's Union, about data centers. Do they drive up real estate prices? Do they use too…
Brandon ArnoldGuest
Jeff HoopesHostScott DyrengHost
What do we know about the relationship between electricity prices and data centers? They use a lot of electricity.
I mean, basic economics would tell us if something is more demanded and maybe there's fixed supply, maybe there's not fixed supply.
When you place more demand on the grid and our grid is already aging, then it does increase prices.
The 10 states with the most data centers statistically have about the same in the way of energy costs as the remainder of the country.
Is that, I mean, do the data centers sort of strategically choose their location based on the cost of energy? So they're like sort of choosing like the, like they don't want to choose to go to the state with the highest energy costs if that's where they get to buy their energy.
But what we're seeing increasingly is this recognition by a lot of the companies constructing these data centers that energy costs are such a hot button issue that many of them are building on site behind the meter generation themselves.
So they will build a natural gas turbine to provide the energy that their data center needs to not place the strain on the grid.
Therefore, the costs, the regulatory costs are less of a factor than they otherwise might be.
What do we know about the relationship between electricity prices and data centers? They use a lot of electricity.
I mean, basic economics would tell us if something is more demanded and maybe there's fixed supply, maybe there's not fixed supply.
When you place more demand on the grid and our grid is already aging, then it does increase prices.
The 10 states with the most data centers statistically have about the same in the way of energy costs as the remainder of the country.
Is that, I mean, do the data centers sort of strategically choose their location based on the cost of energy? So they're like sort of choosing like the, like they don't want to choose to go to the state with the highest energy costs if that's where they get to buy their energy.
But what we're seeing increasingly is this recognition by a lot of the companies constructing these data centers that energy costs are such a hot button issue that many of them are building on site behind the meter generation themselves.
So they will build a natural gas turbine to provide the energy that their data center needs to not place the strain on the grid.
Therefore, the costs, the regulatory costs are less of a factor than they otherwise might be.
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