WHAT OHIOANS ARE READING: ‘Electric bills hit new highs across Ohio, state data shows’
August 6, 2026
SIGNAL OHIO: ‘An average Ohioan’s July electric bill will be 12% higher than 2025 and 62% higher than 2015, new cost data show.’
COLUMBUS, OHIO — New reporting shows that electric bills will “likely hit record highs for millions of Ohioans when July bills go out this month” — thanks to Jon Husted.
Jon Husted’s policies have sent electric rates soaring for Ohioans:
- Husted has been called “the face of data centers” and led the charge to hand out billions in tax breaks to attract them to Ohio.
- Now, Husted is blaming hardworking Ohioans for utility rate increases caused by the record number of data centers that he brought to the state.
- Husted played a key role in the FirstEnergy bribery scheme, the largest public corruption scandal in Ohio that delivered a billion dollar bailout to utilities.
- Husted’s corruption involving the FirstEnergy scandal has contributed to electricity costs for Ohioans increasing by $663 a year.
Ohio Democratic Party Senior Communications Advisor Tony Wen released the following statement:
“Jon Husted’s policies have sent electricity rates soaring for families across our state, but he’d rather blame hardworking Ohioans themselves and lecture them to work even harder. Jon Husted could not be more out of touch with the people of Ohio, and they will hold him accountable in November.”
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Signal Ohio: Electric bills hit new highs across Ohio, state data shows
- Electric bills will likely hit record highs for millions of Ohioans when July bills go out this month, driven by rising rates, new systemic demand and a heat dome that lingered over much of the Midwest.
- New data from the Ohio Utility Rate Survey – a state publication based on cost data from utilities – shows the electric bill for a residential electric customer using an average amount of power hit record levels in Cleveland ($189), Dayton ($188) and Akron ($184) in July.
- It’s not much better elsewhere. Columbus’ July ($198.53) is $1 from the high watermark in May 2024. Toledo ($175) was about $6 off from its June 2023 record. Cincinnati’s July bill ($171) is just $1 short of the local record set last June.
- On a statewide basis, that means July bills are 12% higher than last year and a whopping 62% higher than they were a decade ago.
- A development boom for data centers, the energy-intensive megafacilities serving the artificial intelligence sector, adds to that demand systemically.
- For a Columbus household, in American Electric Power Ohio’s service territory, 900 kilowatt-hours in July 2016 cost $118. Today, that’s about $199. That’s a difference of $81 more for the month. The 10-year spike is similarly seen across the state.
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