Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Economy

Trump Has an Electricity Price Problem

Look more closely at today’s inflation figures and you’ll see it.

Electricity.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Inflation is slowing, but electricity bills are rising. While the below-expectations inflation figure reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Wednesday morning — the consumer price index rose by just 0.1% in May, and 2.4% on the year — has been eagerly claimed by the Trump administration as a victory over inflation, a looming increase in electricity costs could complicate that story.

Consumer electricity prices rose 0.9% in May, and are up 4.5% in the past year. And it’s quite likely price increases will accelerate through the summer, thanks to America’s largest electricity market, PJM Interconnection. Significant hikes are expected or are already happening in many PJM states, including Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Ohio with some utilities having said they would raise rates as soon as this month.

This has led to scrambling by state governments, with New Jersey announcing hundreds of millions of dollars of relief to alleviate rate increases as high as 20%. Maryland convinced one utility to spread out the increase over a few months.

While the dysfunctions of PJM are distinct and well known — new capacity additions have not matched fossil fuel retirements, leading to skyrocketing payments for those generators that can promise to be on in time of need — the overall supply and demand dynamics of the electricity industry could lead to a broader price squeeze.

“Trump and JD Vance can get off tweets about how there’s no inflation, but I don’t think they’ll feel that way in a week or two,” Skanda Amarnath, executive director of Employ America, told me.

And while the consumer price index is made up of, well, almost everything people buy, electricity price increases can have a broad effect on prices in general. “Everyone relies on energy,” Amarnath said. “Businesses that have higher costs can’t just eat it.” That means higher electricity prices may be translated into higher costs throughout the economy, a phenomenon known as “cost-push inflation.”

Aside from the particular dynamics of any one electricity market, there’s likely to be pressure on electricity prices across the country from the increased demand for energy from computing and factories. “There’s a big supply adjustment that’s going to have to happen, the data center demand dynamic is coming to roost,” Amarnath said.

Jefferies Chief U.S. Economist Thomas Simons said as much in a note to clients Wednesday. “Increased stress on the electrical grid from AI data centers, electric vehicle charging, and obligations to fund infrastructure and greenification projects have forced utilities to increase prices,” he wrote.

Of course, there’s also great uncertainty about the future path of electricity policy — namely, what happens to the Inflation Reduction Act — and what that means for prices.

The research group Energy Innovation has modeled the House reconciliation bill’s impact on the economy and the energy industry. The report finds that the bill “would dramatically slow deployment of new electricity generating capacity at a time of rapidly growing electricity demand.” That would result in higher electricity and energy prices across the board, with increases in household energy spending of around $150 per year in 2030, and more than $260 per year in 2035, due in part to a 6% increase in electricity prices by 2035.

In the near term, there’s likely not much policymakers can do about electricity prices, and therefore utility bills going up. Renewables are almost certainly the fastest way to get new electrons on the grid, but the completion of even existing projects could be thrown into doubt by the House bill’s strict “foreign entity of concern” rules, which try to extricate the renewables industry from its relationship with China.

“We’re running into a set of cost-push dynamics. It’s a hairy problem that no one is really wrapping their heads around,” Amarnath said. “It’s not really mainstream yet. It’s going to be.”

In some relief to American consumers, if not the planet, while it may be more expensive for them to cool their homes, it will be less expensive to get out of them: Gasoline prices fell 2.5% in May, according to the BLS, and are down 12% on the year.

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Energy

Bigger Is Better in the Age of Trump, Says NextEra CEO

NextEra CEO John Ketchum projected serenity during the company’s earnings call Wednesday.

A sunglasses emoji amid the NextEra logo.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The business of renewable energy development in the United States is the business of NextEra. The company’s renewable division is one of the country’s largest and most sophisticated, with almost 30 gigawatts in its project backlog — including 3.2 gigawatts added in the past three months.

NextEra’s financial results and outlook for the future can be a guide to how the sector is thinking — or wants people to think it’s thinking — about the state of the development landscape. Now especially, that landscape looks confusing and contradictory, with power demand increasing sharply alongside hostility to wind and solar development.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Politics

The Electricity Affordability Crisis Is Coming

It sure looks that way, at least. Democrats should start coming up with a plan.

Donald Trump and electricity.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Chevrolet

For the first six months of President Trump’s term, the big question was about what would happen to the Inflation Reduction Act. We now have something like an answer.

President Trump’s memorably named One Big Beautiful Bill Act repealed many of the IRA’s most important clean energy tax credits, including incentives for wind, solar, and electric vehicles. And while it’s still unclear whether the Trump administration will let developers actually use the tax credits that remain on the books — especially the now-denuded credits for wind and solar — fewer “unknown unknowns” remain about what might come next.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Sparks

After Trump Phone Call, DOE Cancels $5 Billion for Grain Belt Express

The Department of Energy announced Wednesday that it was scrapping the loan guarantee.

A cut wire.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Department of Energy canceled a nearly $5 billion loan guarantee for the Grain Belt Express, a transmission project intended to connect wind power in Kansas with demand in Illinois that would eventually stretch all the way to Indiana.

“After a thorough review of the project’s financials, DOE found that the conditions necessary to issue the guarantee are unlikely to be met and it is not critical for the federal government to have a role in supporting this project. To ensure more responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources, DOE has terminated its conditional commitment,” the Department of Energy said in a statement Wednesday.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue