Yahoo Finance These 4 US regions will see electricity bills increase the most this summer
The average monthly US electricity bill this summer will be 3% higher than last year, the EIA says.
Residents of Mid-Atlantic states will see their bills increase by $14, the most of any region.
New England, on the other hand, is a rare region that should see electricity bills shrink.
The possibility of a warmer-than-typical summer will make energy prices higher, the US Energy Information Administration said in a new report.
The EIA finds that the average US electricity bill from June through August will be $173, a 3% climb over last year.
The biggest dollar-amount increase will be seen in Mid-Atlantic states, where the average bill will rise by $14, the EIA said.
As shown in the chart below, the Pacific, East South Central, and East North Central regions are the three other areas expected to outpace the national average, with bills climbing anywhere from $6 to $11 over last year.
"Utilities in the Pacific Coast region faced high wholesale costs to supply their electricity needs in 2022 and 2023," the report said. "This region faced natural gas prices that were higher than national averages along with lower-than-normal hydroelectric generation."
In terms of the highest overall prices rather than the largest year-over-year increase, the most expensive region is the West South Central US, where the average bill is $203. While that's a $5-per-bill decrease since last year, it's still the highest in America.
The West South Central region, which includes Texas, has already experienced soaring prices spurred by brutal weather. In September, a Texas heat wave sent spot electricity prices up 20,000% and caused the state's grid operator to issue an emergency.
A more modest repeat took place in May when a heat wave sparked a 1,600% price gain.
While Texan heat events have offered a glimpse at the consequences of increasingly hotter summers, spot prices have actually been sliding in the US, the EIA wrote.
"Average U.S. wholesale power prices, which are an indicator of generation costs, were relatively high in 2021 and 2022, but they declined 30% to 50% in 2023, largely because of falling natural gas prices," the agency said, adding: "Utilities are generating more power from renewable energy sources or purchasing renewable generation from independent power producers."
Read the original article on Business Insider
