WattGuard

Decode the AI-driven spike on your power bill, find the 15–30% you can recover, and turn it into action — supplier shopping, time-of-use shifts, and a one-click rate-case comment.

Date: 2026-05-08 Form factor: Web app (single-page; mobile-friendly) Status: Prototype

What it is

WattGuard is a single-page workspace for households whose electric bills have spiked because of hyperscale data-center demand. It decomposes the user's current bill into its real cost components, calls out the share that is data-center-attributable, and walks the user through the three real consumer levers: switching supplier in retail-choice states, shifting flexible loads onto a TOU rate, and filing a public-comment letter on an active state-PUC rate case. The prototype demonstrates the end-to-end flow against three sample households (Loudoun County VA on Dominion, Houston TX on a competitive REP, and Pittsburgh PA on Duquesne Light's default Price-to-Compare).

Who it serves

Owner-occupants and renters in the PJM, ERCOT, and CAISO footprints — the territories that have absorbed the largest data-center-driven cost increases since 2023. Specifically:

• Households in the Mid-Atlantic seeing PJM capacity-charge pass-throughs (Virginia, Maryland, NJ, OH, PA, IL, IN, KY, NC, WV, DC).
• Texas households on default or expiring REP plans who haven't shopped PowerToChoose in 12+ months.
• Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois households still sitting on the utility default Price-to-Compare instead of a fixed 12-month plan.
• People who saw a $50–$200/month winter-bill spike and don't know whether to blame the weather, the wholesale market, or themselves.

Why it could be profitable

Monetization model:

• Free decoder + savings estimate (acquisition).
• $5/mo Watchdog subscription — monthly bill audits with anomaly alerts and rate-shop reminders 30 days before contract expiry.
• $25 one-time Switch Concierge — a guided supplier-switch flow, including the broker handoff in TX, PA, OH, and IL (we collect a $40–$80 acquisition fee from the supplier per switched household).
• $1.50/comment Civic Voice — pre-filled, evidence-backed PUC rate-case comments delivered via the right portal, with proof of filing.
• B2B/white-label: utility consumer-advocate offices, state attorneys general, and nonprofits (Citizens Utility Board, AARP, Sierra Club) can license the decoder + comment generator.

Demand rationale (why now):

• The PJM 2026/2027 capacity auction cleared at the FERC-approved cap of $329.17/MW-day — about a 10x jump from two auctions prior, with data-center demand identified as the dominant driver. (Enel North America, Citizens Utility Board, 2026-01-30)
• US residential electricity has risen ~36% from 2020 to Feb 2026 (12.76¢/kWh → 17.44¢/kWh), and a January 2026 Bloom Energy report projects US data-center demand to nearly double from 80 GW to 150 GW by 2028. (CNBC, 2026-02-12, Consumer Reports)
• Areas with dense data-center load saw electricity prices jump 267% over five years. One Virginia resident's bill went from ~$100 in December 2025 to $281 in January 2026. (Yale Climate Connections, 2026-01)
• Switching suppliers in deregulated markets routinely saves 15–30%, but participation lags the opportunity — Texas leads at 87% switching, but PA sits at ~35% and Ohio at ~57%. (Electric Choice)
• The political environment is finally moving — 238 data-center-related bills were introduced in 50 states in 2025 with 40+ enacted in 21 states; Oregon became the first state to create a dedicated data-center electricity rate class. The case for ratepayer-side advocacy has never been more concrete. (Introl, 2026)
• FERC has explicitly directed PJM to write new rules for large-load interconnection while protecting consumers — meaning rate-case comments now have a real federal hook. (FERC)

A consumer tool that turns an opaque, one-page utility bill into a clear "you can recover $X by doing Y" workflow has obvious price-disruption headroom against the existing options (call your utility, hire an energy broker, or do nothing).

Form factor & scope

A single-page web app, mobile-friendly. The prototype demonstrates a 4-panel audit flow against three sample households. A production version would integrate Green Button Connect (utility data download), live retail-supplier feeds (PowerToChoose, PA Power Switch, Apples-to-Apples Ohio), state PUC docket APIs, and a managed comment-filing pipeline.

Minimum viable scope demonstrated: household selection → bill-component decoder with data-center attribution → supplier shop with best-fit highlighting → load-shifter slider (live monthly + annual savings) → rate-case voice with pre-filled comment letter, copy + download.

How to run it

1. Open index.html in any modern browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari).
2. The first sample household (Loudoun County, VA) loads automatically. Click another household in the left rail to see the same flow against an ERCOT household with retail choice or a PA household on the utility default.
3. Click any line item in the Bill decoder for a plain-English explainer of what the charge pays for and why it is moving.
4. In Supplier shop, the row tagged BEST FIT is the highest-savings plan; a warn-styled row flags expensive default/variable plans to avoid.
5. Drag the Load shifter slider to see live monthly and annual savings change as you simulate moving more load to off-peak hours. The topbar's annual-savings pill updates as you do.
6. In Rate-case voice, edit the pre-filled letter, then Copy letter or Download .txt to file with the appropriate state PUC.

Note: sample-data.json is also embedded inline as a <script type="application/json"> block inside index.html, so the prototype runs directly from file:// without needing a local web server.

What's in this prototype

• Sticky topbar with a live PJM auction-clearing pill ($329.17/MW-day) and a running "Est. annual savings opportunity" pill that updates as you change households or move the load slider.
• Household rail: three sample profiles with distinct ISO/regulatory contexts (regulated PJM-VA, deregulated ERCOT-TX, deregulated PJM-PA), each with their own usage profile and persona.
• Persona card: current month, current bill, average monthly kWh, and a 12-month YoY trend tinted red (up) or green (down).
• Step 1 — Bill decoder: each line item rendered as a stacked bar (baseline vs. data-center-attributable share). Click a row to see the explainer; the KPIs show the data-center share of the whole bill in both percentage and dollars.
• Step 2 — Supplier shop: alternative-plan table for retail-choice states, with BEST FIT and warn row styling. For regulated states, this panel honestly tells the user there is no shopping lever and routes them to the other panels.
• Step 3 — Load shifter: an interactive slider (range tied to ~50% of the household's monthly kWh) with peak/off-peak rate cards and live monthly + annual savings.
• Step 4 — Rate-case voice: docket metadata (ID, title, deadline with days-left, filing portal URL), bullet list of evidence-based talking points, and a pre-filled letter that pulls in the household's actual data-center-attributable dollar amount. Copy-to-clipboard and .txt download both work.

Roadmap

• Green Button Connect ingest: pull the user's actual 13-month kWh + bill PDF, decode each line item against utility tariff schedules so no manual entry is needed.
• Live supplier feeds: ingest PowerToChoose (TX), PA Power Switch (PA), and Apples-to-Apples (OH) so plans are real-time, with broker-handoff revenue share.
• Auto-rate-shop on contract expiry: detect the 30-day-out window in the user's bill data and re-shop automatically.
• Filed-comment service: file the generated rate-case comment with the correct state PUC portal and return a stamped receipt.
• Multi-household / portfolio mode: for landlords, property managers, and small-business owners with multiple meters across a state.
• TOU enrollment concierge: walk the user through opting into the utility's existing TOU rate (Dominion's TOU-D, ComEd's Hourly Pricing, etc.) and verify enrollment.
• Notification stack: push alerts when a new rate case opens in the user's territory, when the PJM auction clears, when a default Price-to-Compare changes.

Sources

• PJM 2026/2027 Capacity Auction Results (Enel North America) — supports the $329.17/MW-day clearing price and 22% YoY hike.
• PJM Rate Shock: $100B Data Centers vs Ratepayers (Introl, 2026) — supports the 238 state bills, Oregon dedicated rate class, and political-backlash framing.
• The devil is in the details: PJM data-center policy analysis (Citizens Utility Board, 2026-01-30) — supports the 63% data-center share of the auction increase and the $9.3B added capacity cost figure.
• Home electricity bills are skyrocketing — for data centers, not so much (Yale Climate Connections, 2026-01) — supports the 267% five-year price jump in data-center-dense regions.
• AI Data Centers: Big Tech's Impact on Electric Bills (Consumer Reports) — supports the $100→$281 Virginia residential bill anecdote.
• Electricity prices rising at 2x inflation; data center demand means no relief (CNBC, 2026-02-12) — supports the 36% residential price increase from 2020 to Feb 2026.
• Electricity Rates by State, May 2026 (Electric Choice) — supports state-by-state rate averages, switching rates (TX 87%, OH 57%, PA 35%), and the 6.69¢/kWh PA fixed-rate floor.
• FERC directs PJM to create new large-load rules (FERC press release) — supports the federal regulatory hook for state-level rate-case comments.