Rising Electricity Prices – OpEd |
Half of Americans now struggle to pay basic bills on time. Nearly four in ten people have been displaced from their homes by rising costs, as housing costs jumped sharply in just two years, medical care costs rose again, and groceries continue to rise. From 2010 to 2023, residential electricity prices rose by nearly 40%, in line with inflation, with no signs of slowing down. In fact, electric utilities in 2025, alone, requested rate increases from state Public Utilities Commissions and Public Service Commissions totaling $71.2 billion through 2028. The price per electricity unit strongly depends on the customer category.
Part of the reason for increased prices has been a surge in demand. Total US electricity consumption reached a historical peak at 4.10 trillion kWh in 2024.
The national five-year forecast in 2024 for electricity load was five times higher than 2022 estimates. Demand growth’s largest drivers are data centers, manufacturing, and Electric Vehicle (EV) adoption, and building electrification. Other cost drivers include repairing and building on an aging transmission and distribution grid, reliability problems, and replacing pollutive electricity sources with renewables.
Strict federal and state laws limit most renewables’ power to the grid, wasting current infrastructure and further development potential. The Department of Energy under the second Trump administration, for example, has recently issued at least 74 emergency orders stopping old coal plants from shutting down as planned.
One December order stopped the Craig Unit 1 coal plant in Colorado from shutting down, citing a sudden increase in demand for electricity or a shortage of generation capacity. The state of Colorado and the unit’s utility owners petitioned the order, mainly because it incurs an estimated $85 million per year to utilities, which........