Why Electricity Prices Are Rising Around the World, and What It Means for Bitcoin Mining

Gas shocks, AI data centres and the cost of new power lines are pushing electricity bills up in most of the world, and the forecasts point higher. For Bitcoin miners, the price of a kilowatt-hour now decides almost everything.

By Michal Beno, CEO, OneMiners7 October 2026

Start with the clearest data set in the world, the United States. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the government's statistics agency, publishes average retail prices every month. In its outlook of 9 September 2026, it put the average household price at 17.3 cents per kWh for 2025, 18.2 cents for 2026 and 18.6 cents for 2027. In 2020 the same number was 13.15 cents. That is a rise of more than a third in seven years.

It is not only inflation. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Brattle Group found that US power rates rose 2.6% faster than inflation from 2024 to 2025, and that household rates are up about 33% since 2019. US utilities asked regulators for about $18 billion in rate increases in 2025 alone (reported by Utility Dive, 16 July 2026). The EIA also expects US electricity use to hit a record 4,135 billion kWh in 2026, "driven by data center development".

Outside the US, the picture is similar. In the UK, the energy regulator Ofgem raised its price cap by 4% from 1 October 2026, to about 1,723 pounds a year for a typical home, with an electricity unit rate of 26.32 pence per kWh. In the European Union, the average household paid 28.96 euros per 100 kWh in the second half of 2025 (Eurostat), with Germany at 38.69 and Ireland at 40.42. Taxes and levies made up 28.9% of the EU household bill.

In many countries, gas power plants set the price of electricity for everyone. Power markets usually pay all generators the price of the last, most expensive plant needed to meet demand, and that plant is very often gas-fired. So when gas gets dearer, electricity gets dearer, even if most power comes from wind, sun or nuclear.

2026 brought exactly that kind of shock. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported in its July 2026 electricity update that disruption to gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz pushed Asian LNG (liquefied natural gas) spot prices more than 65% above pre-crisis levels, and that wholesale power prices in Europe and Japan were up more than 30% in the second quarter. Ofgem named higher gas costs as the reason for the October UK cap rise. On top of that, Europe charges a carbon price on fossil power: EU carbon allowances traded at about 82.56 euros per tonne on 28 August 2026 (S&P Global).

The second driver is new demand. AI models run on huge data centres full of chips that use electricity around the clock. The IEA's Energy and AI report estimated that data centres used about 415 TWh in 2024 and could reach about 945 TWh by 2030, roughly the whole electricity use of Japan today. A terawatt-hour (TWh) is a billion kilowatt-hours.

Where data centres cluster, the effect shows up fast. PJM runs the grid for 13 US states from Illinois to Virginia, the world's biggest cluster of data centres. Every year it holds a capacity auction: power plants are paid to promise they will be available in a future year. The clearing price went from $28.92 per MW-day for 2024/25 to $333.44 for 2027/28, and the last two auctions hit the regulator's price cap. PJM reported that data centres made up 5,100 MW of the 5,250 MW rise in forecast peak demand, and the auction still fell about 6,600 MW short of its reliability target. Households pay for that through their bills.

Every new power plant and every new data centre needs wires, substations and transformers. The IEA expects global grid investment of about $550 billion in 2026, up around 20%, and reports that prices and waiting times for transformers and cables have nearly doubled since 2021. A large transformer can now take up to four years to arrive. More than 2,500 GW of new projects are waiting in grid connection queues worldwide. Grid costs are paid back slowly through the part of the bill that covers networks, which is why they keep pushing tariffs up for years.

Some grids are now rationing new connections. In Texas, the state paused new data centre grid connections in August 2026 pending a review, while the grid operator ERCOT weighs about 474 GW of large-load requests, about 90% of them data centres.

Cars, heating, cooling and industry are all switching to electricity. The IEA's July 2026 update forecast world electricity demand growth of 3.6% in 2026 and 3.8% in 2027, up from 3% in 2025, with India growing about 7% and China about 5.5%. When demand grows faster than new supply can connect, prices tend to rise.

There is a real chance they will rise in most places, because the main drivers are global: gas is traded worldwide, AI data centres are being built on every continent, and every grid needs upgrading. Forward markets agree. The IEA reported that EU forward power prices for the fourth quarter of 2026 were about 35% higher than a year earlier.

But an honest answer has three caveats. First, cheap hours are growing too: the EU recorded 1,223 hours of negative wholesale prices in the first quarter of 2026, more than double a year earlier (pv-magazine, 8 May 2026), because solar floods the grid at midday. Second, some countries got cheaper: Eurostat recorded falls of about 12% in France and Denmark in the second half of 2025. Third, adjusted for inflation, US prices are still below their 2010 level (LBNL, April 2026). Renewables also overtook coal as the world's largest power source in 2025 (Ember).

The pattern is clear: the average bill is going up, while the cheapest hours are getting cheaper. That split matters a lot for anyone who can choose when and where to use power, and Bitcoin miners are the most flexible power users there are.

A Bitcoin miner turns electricity into hashrate, the guesses that secure the network and earn block rewards. Revenue per unit of hashrate is called hashprice. On 5 October 2026 it was about $0.0398 per TH/s per day, close to the level Luxor's Hashrate Index described on 28 September as at or below break-even for many miners. When revenue is that tight, the power price decides who makes money and who switches off.

The table shows why mining at home has become so hard. At a typical household price, the same Bitcoin miner costs more to run than it earns. At a hosting rate of a few cents, it keeps a healthy margin, and even a 20% rise in that rate leaves room. Every cent on the power price moves the result.

The second lesson is efficiency. A Bitcoin miner that needs less energy per terahash (J/TH) can survive a much higher power price. An Antminer S23 Hyd at 9.5 J/TH breaks even near 17 cents per kWh at today's numbers, while an older S19j Pro at about 29.5 J/TH breaks even near 6 cents. As power gets dearer, older machines are pushed out first.

Rising prices have changed what a mining site is worth. Large listed miners have signed long-term deals to rent their power capacity to AI companies, because a connected, contracted megawatt has become scarce. For a smaller miner the lesson is the same at a different scale: the machine is only half the investment. The other half is a reliable, low and predictable price for the electricity it will use for years.

That is the idea behind professional hosting. OneMiners runs 15 hosting locations, including hydro-powered sites in Ethiopia, Norway, Paraguay, Canada and Brazil. Hosting starts from $0.048 per kWh at the Nigeria site, and from $0.0364 per kWh on a 7-year prepaid contract, which fixes the electricity price for the power paid in advance. Hosted miners carry a 7-year warranty that covers defects, not normal wear.

Antminer S23 318T$6,899Hashrate318 TH/sEfficiency11.00 J/THPower draw3,498 WBreak-even power$0.151/kWhNet/day at 4.80c$8.63View on OneMiners

Antminer S23 Hyd 580T$12,299Hashrate580 TH/sEfficiency9.50 J/THPower draw5,510 WBreak-even power$0.175/kWhNet/day at 4.80c$16.74View on OneMiners

Antminer S21e Hyd 338T$1,899Hashrate338 TH/sEfficiency16.90 J/THPower draw5,710 WBreak-even power$0.098/kWhNet/day at 4.80c$6.87View on OneMiners

Efficient Bitcoin miners from the OneMiners catalogue. Live prices 6 October 2026; net per day at $0.048 per kWh, at today's numbers, before pool fees.

Frequently asked questions

Michal Beno

CEO of OneMiners, the global Bitcoin mining hosting and hardware platform with 15 published hosting locations, 7-year fixed electricity contracts and a 7-year hardware warranty. He writes about the economics of industrial Bitcoin mining.

Informational only, not financial advice. Electricity prices and forecasts are from the public sources listed, as published at the dates shown, and can change quickly. Bitcoin figures are a snapshot as of 5 October 2026. Crypto prices can fall as well as rise. No return is offered or implied. Do your own research.