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Electric bills shocked Ohioans this summer.

A 2024 auction for power broke records, increasing bills this past summer by as much as 15%, according to the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council. Some cleveland.com readers reported their bills more than doubled.

Energy experts say the surge stems from a mix of factors that include expensive grid updates to meet the growing use of artificial intelligence powered by giant data centers.

But wait; shouldn’t electric companies have been updating the grid all along?

FirstEnergy collected a grid modernization fee from Ohioans for years, but a 2022 audit found no evidence the company ever used it to improve its grid.

The go

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