There absolutely is a narrative out there, but it's mostly unfounded. Bloomberg ran a completely absurd article about how AI was causing voltage drops in Colorado. Totally insane stuff, some of their contributors are pushing an agenda.

This Dept. of Energy analysis, which was recently updated, makes a lot more sense. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104061902...

Interesting. Though their conclusions are pretty weak:

> In some cases, spikes in load growth can result in significant, near-term retail price increases. Results from recent capacity auctions in the mid-Atlantic region prove this point, with sizable impacts on retail pricing beginning in 2025 (e.g., Howland, 2025). The duration of such impacts remains unclear, however, and will depend on the ability to build new cost-effective infrastructure to serve new loads. In other cases, utilities have argued that load growth will reduce average retail prices, consistent with our analysis of recent impacts (e.g., PG&E, 2025). Overall, our results cast doubt on the simple view that load growth will necessarily increase prices over the medium- to longer-term. Emerging evidence from 2025 suggests near-term impacts that can be either positive or negative; medium- to longer-term effects are uncertain.

Basically says “Maybe it makes retail more expensive, maybe it doesn’t”

And quite frankly I no longer fully trust the DoE. Politically captured by the trump administration, and directed to lie about renewables. Probably the folk writing this study are still trustworthy, but sadly I have a seed of doubt now.