American wallets are being melted by the sun. Power bills have gone up due to a string of record-breaking heat waves that have occurred in quick succession, and experts warn that the situation will only worsen if we do nothing.
An analysis of AWN’s price tracker reveals that power prices will reach $0.18/kWh in 2024, up from $0.14/kWh in 2019, an increase of about 28.5%. These days, the typical American spends around $300 monthly on utilities alone.
A lot of people can’t afford it.
“Sometimes I have to choose whether I’m going to pay the light bill or do I pay all the rent or buy food or not let my son do a sport?” Parent Stacey Freeman of North Carolina, aged 44, spoke with KFF Health News.
Despite using window units and space heaters throughout the year, her energy costs still cost her hundreds of dollars per month.
The term for Freeman’s predicament is “energy poverty,” which means they cannot afford the utilities necessary to keep their home at a comfortable temperature.
Research defining energy poverty as spending more than 6% of household income on energy expenses was published in Nature Communications in 2022 and revealed that 16% of U.S. households are in it. Those who are deemed to have low incomes are not the only ones affected. This problem affects 5.2 million middle-class homes, according to the study, with Black, Hispanic, and Native American neighborhoods bearing a disproportionate share of that burden.
“Energy inequity is an issue of increasing urgency,” states the study. “…creating a federal energy poverty line would be a critical step in identifying families that face large disparities in access to affordable electricity and energy in the U.S. and improve programs’ abilities to address energy burdens.”
Many factors affect the price of power, including fluctuations in natural gas prices, the likelihood of wildfires, the efficiency of power transmission and distribution, government regulations, and, as all Americans are too familiar with, inflation. However, experts agree that heat is a more fundamental issue than inflation, and it shows no signs of going away anytime soon.
The nation’s grid is prone to failure
The United States is only one of many countries that has seen consecutive years of record-high temperatures. Extreme weather events, such summer heat waves and winter snow storms, are fueled by rising temperatures. As a result, individuals use more energy to keep their houses warm or cold. To ensure that the electric infrastructure can manage it, it also raises costs for the utility providers.
At the moment, it is unable to.
In the United States, power disruptions are still a big deal. Power outages affected hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands when Tropical Storm Ernesto blew through earlier this month. practically half of the population of Puerto Rico and practically the whole USVI were powerless at one point.
The mainland is also part of it, not only the islands. Weather was the underlying cause of 80% of the significant power outages in the United States between 2000 and 2023, according to researchers at the charity Climate Central.
The American Society of Civil Engineers publishes a “report card” detailing the state of the nation’s infrastructure in a number of different areas every four years. The energy industry was rated with a C-in the most recent report.
Although utilities have increased investing on transmission lines and are taking proactive measures to protect the national grid, engineering experts have noted that “weather remains an increasing threat” and that power outages are still happening often. They raised the alarm about transmission and distribution networks, saying that the problem “is likely to accelerate as the impacts of climate change persist and the public’s expectation of more reliable, ‘always-on’ electricity increases.”
“While the weather has always been the number one threat to the energy sector’s reliability, climate change has only exacerbated the frequency and intensity of these events and associated costs,” according to the research. “The Department of Energy (DOE) found that power outages are costing the U.S. economy $28 billion to $169 billion annually.”
The prevalence of energy poverty and heat is demonstrated by several polls and research. Heat has had a “major impact” on electricity bills for 39% of Americans, according to an early August study by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Another 30% of Americans cited a “minor impact.” In addition, nearly 40% of respondents said that storms, floods, heat, and wildfires caused them to incur unforeseen electricity bills.
In addition to being expensive, the heat can be harmful. Because it worsens preexisting diseases like heart disease and lung disease, extreme heat is the leading cause of death in the United States due to weather-related causes. Another issue is the cold; over 19,000 Americans have died from cold-related causes since 1979, according to the EPA.
“Not only are households living in more poverty and closer proximity to highly polluted areas at greater risk of adverse health impacts,” the study published in Nature in 2022 indicates. “They must also consume more energy to overcome the particulate emissions, which, themselves, reduce the efficiency of clean sources such as solar panels.”
A way to lower energy costs
A long-term answer that can significantly aid is clean energy, according to experts.
A major contributor to the increase in global temperatures, the combustion of fossil fuels accounted for almost 60% of the electricity generated in the United States in 2023, as reported by the Energy Information Administration. Despite historic highs, renewable energy only accounted for 21% of power generation last year.
According to research published in March 2020, the current state of the United States’ energy infrastructure could be severely compromised if global warming continues. Substation transformers would have a shorter lifespan and more money will be needed for vegetation care, according to the report.
“Total infrastructure costs were found to rise considerably, with annual climate change expenditures increasing by as much as 25%,” according to the report. “The results demonstrate that climate impacts will likely be substantial, though this analysis only captures a portion of the total potential impacts.”
They discovered that the anticipated expenses could be cut in half by 2090 if the United States took a more active stance against climate change.
Communities have already benefited from expanding clean energy.
According to a report from July by the Energy Innovation think group, “states with high levels of wind and solar generation like New Mexico, Iowa, and Oklahoma have experienced the lowest rate increases” in energy bills. Despite widespread devastation in the surrounding areas, a solar-powered village in Florida escaped Hurricane Ian in 2022 largely unharmed. Investing in renewable energy infrastructure may save American households $500 year in energy expenditures alone, according to a 2021 report by the Center for American Progress.
This is why, according to experts, improved policy and financing are absolutely necessary.
“Clean energy technologies are expected to continue to decline in costs, enable substantial emissions reductions in the electricity sector without increasing costs,” Energy Innovation found in its report this year. The report also noted that regulators and policymakers should make sure that consumers don’t have to deal with “unnecessary costs and risks” from the shift to clean energy.
The group argued that “Regulators and policymakers have a range of tools they can deploy to mitigate pressure on rising rates, ensuring an affordable and accessible transition to clean electricity.” Potential solutions to the problem include more effective planning, more competitive resource procurement, grid-enhancing technologies, improved cooperation, and other measures.
