Reduce Your Electric Bill With These 5 Easy Changes
As the world is mired in a persistent energy crisis, people are looking for ways to reduce their electricity consumption. Here are five instant changes you can make to reduce your electricity bill.
Lifestyle
Electricity and gas prices have been rising rapidly, and they are going even higher.
Those are the findings of two recent reports on skyrocketing utility bills, one examining the past, the other predicting the future.
Household utility costs increased 41% between 2020 and 2025, according to a September study. analysis by JD Power, based on electricity, gas and water prices in the second quarter of each year.
This means utility bills are rising faster than inflation. Overall consumer prices are about 24% higher today than at the start of 2020, according to Discount rate.
The average household paid $184 per month for electricity, $141 for gas and $99 for water in the second quarter of this year, JD Power reports. Together, these monthly costs have increased by $122 since 2020.
More than 40 states face higher utility bills
A second report suggests more rate hikes are coming.
More than 100 gas and electric companies have raised their rates or proposed increases for this year or 2026, according to a September report. report of the Center for American Progress, a liberal, nonprofit public policy organization.
Residents in more than 40 states face higher utility bills, the report said. Some examples:
Southern California Edison has requested rate increases totaling 19% for 5 million California customers between 2025 and 2028, a cumulative increase of $33 per customer, according to the report.
Consolidated Edison has requested a 13% rate increase in 2026 for 3.6 million New Yorkers, increasing the average bill by $26.60.
Spire Inc. raised its rates 15% in October for 1.2 million Missourians, an average monthly increase of $14, according to the report.
Anger spreads over rising utility bills
Fury over rising utility bills has become an issue in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races and could shape the 2026 midterm elections, according to The Washington Post.
“Is anyone else’s electric bill crazy these days? » » asked a Reddit user in a recent post to the r/florida community. “This is the HIGHEST I have EVER reached in my life.”
It’s one thing if a utility raises your rates and then offers better service.
But it is difficult to measure marginal gains in gas or electricity services: they are on or off. And customers in much of the country have experienced more outages in recent years, JD Power reports.
“Customers don’t hesitate to pay more if they get more,” said Ramah Vaughndirector of utility intelligence at JD Power. “What we’ve seen is those rates have gone up, but customers aren’t getting more.”
Here’s why your electricity bill is increasing
Inflation is a reality, especially in recent years. But two specific trends are driving up prices in the gas and electricity sectors, Vaughn said.
One of them is climate change. Global warming has accelerated the pace of natural disasters across America: floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, etc.
Disasters can lead to costly repairs to the power grid. Utilities pass these costs on to customers.
“When there are these natural disasters, the rates go up. And there’s a sense of frustration with the rates going up,” Vaughn said. “When there’s a snowstorm and rates go up a year later, everyone forgets about the snowstorm.”
The second, less obvious factor in rising electricity bills is AI. Electricity demand is increasing in data centers supporting artificial intelligence.
“In the span of, I’ll call it 24 months, data centers went from a topic that no one was talking about to a topic that everyone was talking about,” said Todd Snitchlerpresident of the Electric Power Supply Association, a group that represents wholesale power producers.
Data centers have been around for years. But in the age of AI, they’re “coming online at an unprecedented rate,” powering everything from Google searches to AI-assisted offer letters, said Lucero Marquezassociate director for federal climate policy at the Center for American Progress.
“With AI and data centers, this growth is on a much faster trajectory than anything we’ve seen in recent years,” Vaughn said. “This is a major catalyst for increasing monthly bill amounts, and there is no end in sight.”
Data center energy demands are straining aging infrastructure, forcing utilities to spend billions of dollars on upgrades. They pass these costs on to residential customers.
“The U.S. power grid is aging,” Márquez said. “Much of the system was built decades ago. »
Power companies will spend $1.1 trillion between 2025 and 2029 to modernize their energy grid, a study shows. report of the Edison Electric Institute, an industry association.
The costs of upgrading utility infrastructure are also increasing. And these costs are expected to increase further.
There is a national shortage of transformers, a key part of the electricity grid, the Center for American Progress reports. The Trump administration’s tariff campaign could worsen the shortage: most transformers are imported.
Note of votes from the electricity sector other factors increase electricity bills, like state-level mandates for clean energy. The American Progress report counters that clean energy is cheaper in the long run than fossil fuels.
Rising utility bills weigh on household budgets
Rising utility bills are putting a strain on household budgets. Monthly gas, electricity and water services now represent 6.3% of the average household income, JD Power reports, up from 4.5% in 2020.
A month of September investigation by Payless Power, a Texas utility, found that two-fifths of low-income households faced overdue electricity bills in the past year. One in three low-income homes received closure notices.
The survey reached 1,069 Americans, 43% of whom lived in low-income households, with annual income below $56,600.
“It’s increasingly common for families to forget to take their medications, fall behind on rent payments or go without phone service, just to be able to keep the power on,” said Brandon Young, CEO of Payless Power.
