AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Energy analysts say demand is much to blame for increasing energy costs, with AI often the culprit. But where we get our electricity also changes how much we pay, as Radio IQ's Mason Adams, and Roxy Todd report from both sides of the Virginia-West Virginia border.
ROXY TODD, BYLINE: At a food pantry in Montgomery County, Virginia, Samantha Sparks is picking up chicken, eggs and peanut butter. Sparks works as a nurse, but still, her family is straining to keep up with bills.
SAMANTHA SPARKS: I've made it in my family - it's like a game to us now, who can turn off the most lights in the house and keep them off? - because it just keeps going up and up, and we're not doing anything different. We're actually using less, but the bill keeps going more.
MASON ADAMS, BYLINE: Electricity costs in West Virginia and Virginia are at the national average, but they've been rising. A lot of that is because of the data center boom in Northern Virginia, says William Shobe, an economics professor emeritus at the University of Virginia.
WILLIAM SHOBE: They will be the single largest segment of electricity demand in Virginia. That's happened really fast. It caught us all by surprise.
ADAMS: Shobe says, there's another factor that's driving up costs, and that's how we get our electricity.
SHOBE: Solar is now our cheapest new resource.
TODD: But solar isn't powering a lot of Appalachian communities. Instead, they're still using electricity generated by more labor-intensive coal. And when utility companies use coal instead of cheaper fuel sources like solar, costs go up. Jim Kotcon is a volunteer with the Sierra Club in West Virginia.
JIM KOTCON: Well, the market has clearly spoken.
TODD: He says renewable energy is cheaper to generate for utilities. We're standing on the side of a winding road outside Shinnston, West Virginia, looking at the Harrison coal plant.
KOTCON: When there are lower-cost sources of electricity available, these plants shut down.
ADAMS: But the Trump administration is trying hard to keep them running. The Department of Energy awarded $175 million for upgrades to coal plants across the Southeast.
TODD: Three of them are in West Virginia, where lawmakers recently passed a bill that makes it more difficult to close coal plants. It's part of Governor Patrick Morrisey's plan for more electricity.
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PATRICK MORRISEY: And you know what that does? That will power America for the next half century and beyond.
ADAMS: West Virginia regulators want utilities to run their coal plants at 69% capacity to protect mining jobs. But that's too much, says Appalachian Power spokesperson George Porter.
GEORGE PORTER: All that does is increase costs for customers, and the goal is to try to keep costs down for our customers.
TODD: Porter says coal plants run more economically at just 40%.
ADAMS: And Appalachian Power is caught in a strange dilemma. They also provide electricity to parts of Virginia, which is moving away from coal. It has a state law that says utility companies have to stop using coal and all other fossil fuels by 2050.
PORTER: It can be tricky. Virginia wants one thing, and they're pushing more renewables. And obviously, West Virginia is a more coal-fired state, so that's what they're leaning toward.
ADAMS: It's unclear just how much the war in Iran will affect electricity prices. But pro-coal advocates say that along with data centers, it's yet another example of why it's so important to grow electricity production, including coal. Conor Bernstein is with the National Mining Association.
CONOR BERNSTEIN: The demand reality and the reliability reality is, you've got to have coal, and it's going to be here, and it's going to be essential for the foreseeable future.
TODD: Right now, this is a conversation about the future. As long as power demand from data centers keeps rising, utilities here will continue to rely on coal.
ADAMS: So for the moment, there's no relief from these rising power bills.
For NPR News. I'm Mason Adams in Roanoke, Virginia.
TODD: And I'm Roxy Todd in Harrison County, West Virginia.
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