| | | Why the Price of Electricity Is Spiking Around the Country
Not all states have gotten hit equally hard. The reasons are complex.
  
By Brad Plumer Harry Stevens and Rebecca F. Elliott
Oct. 30, 2025
Millions of Americans have watched with dismay as their electricity bills have spiraled upward over the past few years. The rising price of power is squeezing households and businesses, and voter fury over higher costs is jolting elections in New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia.
President Trump, who as a candidate promised to cut electric bills in half within 18 months, has blamed wind and solar power for soaring costs. Democrats say the problem is Mr. Trump’s throttling of renewable energy, while others point to the rapid spread of energy-hungry data centers.
But the factors driving electricity rates are often more complicated and depend on where you live, according to a comprehensive new study by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Not all states are suffering equally. Over the past six years, the average retail price of electricity has risen faster than inflation in 26 states. But rates have stayed flat or even declined in the rest of the country in real terms (that is, they’ve grown more slowly than overall inflation)....
‘It’s really poles and wires’
The two biggest factors that influence power prices are the cost of generating electricity at a power plant and then delivering those electrons to homes and business through large regional power lines (known as transmission) and the smaller wires snaking through cities (known as distribution).
“When you look at what’s driving electricity bills, it’s really poles and wires,” said Charles Hua, the founder of PowerLines, a nonprofit organization focused on modernizing utility regulations to cut power bills.
The rest of the story:
nytimes.com
My comments:
Solar at utility scale along with storage is saving utilities and ratepayers the most.
Lowest cost form of generation with huge flexibility and those facilities pay for themselves in just a few years of operation.
And then it's gravy for decades.
Zero fuel cost and no pollution!
Eric |
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