Electricity Price Increases

[Torvy]

lol... and people complain about their energy prices doubling, today! Are you ready to pay 10x more for your power?!?


I guess that will make residential ROI on solar more likely.

Prices are high because demand exceeds supply and some elected officials think growth is bad. Costs to build coal, NG and nuke power are artificially inflated to make solar and wind seem more rational. Had they not shuttered existing coal and NG and blocked new Nuke plants, we would already be closer to equilibrium.

Increase supply and prices go down. Basic economic law.

The 'extra' is to absorb the future growth. By the time new plants are operational, demand will have increased and some older plants will need to be taken offline. Wind and solar will always only be supplementary power.

 

[Caballywh]

I started shopping around after my own bill jumped, and it was surprising how different the quotes were. I’ve used smarterbusiness.co.uk before to compare options, and it helped me sort out a better rate without much fuss. Even small drops in price per kWh add up over a summer, so it’s worth poking around to see if your area has alternatives or special contracts that soften the blow.

 

[jyoutz]

Ours doesn't have a cooling tower, it has Lake Michigan.

And that’s the big issue. Nuclear takes a lot a cooling water. Which is fine when you have a resource like lake Michigan, but not in many water limited locations.

 

[bdhsfz6]

In PA, where I live, we can shop for the best electric rates. I've been doing this for several years, but even these "competitive" prices have almost doubled since November of 2025.

Local sources say it's because of the demand caused by all the new data centers moving into eastern PA.

 

[WinterDeere]

In PA... prices have almost doubled since November of 2025.

I guess I'd better look at my bill, and see if it's time to start shopping. Our electric bill has always been insane, I always get those emails each month saying our usage is "higher than X% of your neighbors", with X never lower than 70% in winter and 90% in summer.

I just checked emails and see the last notice was one of the lower ones, higher than 74% of neighbors, at 3394 kWh for December. I'd bet most of those neighbors have primarily electric heat, heat pumps have dominated new construction here since the 1980's, but we have wood, oil, and propane for the majority of the house.

 

[walhondingMF]

In PA, where I live, we can shop for the best electric rates. I've been doing this for several years, but even these "competitive" prices have almost doubled since November of 2025.

Local sources say it's because of the demand caused by all the new data centers moving into eastern PA.

This kind of situation may really increase the demand to improve individual home solar. There has been word of a data center going in close to my home. If this happens, I will be expected to subsidize the energy consumption of the data center. Producing my own electricity and completely leaving the grid won't leave me to the whims of things I cannot control.
People leaving the grid and generating their own power may become more and more popular.

 

[DarkBlack]

And that’s the big issue. Nuclear takes a lot a cooling water. Which is fine when you have a resource like lake Michigan, but not in many water limited locations.

Ehh.. A properly designed modern nuclear power plant will have the same cooling water requirement as any other thermal steam turbine power plant, like natural gas, oil or coal, watt for watt.

 

[WinterDeere]

Ehh.. A properly designed modern nuclear power plant will have the same cooling water requirement as any other thermal steam turbine power plant, like natural gas, oil or coal, watt for watt.

Maybe that's possible, if we were building new nuke plants today, I don't know. But in terms of what we have now, nuclear power plants use substantially more water than any othr plant type. Nukes average around 800 gal/MWh, whereas oil and gas are both down around 600 gal/MWh, and combined-cycle plants can be as low as 220 gal/MWh.

More nuke plants' energy comes from "once thru" systems, whereas natural gas plants are more likely to have a higher fraction of their energy coming from recirculating systems. There are even dry cooling options in gas and coal, although we only seem to see them widely deployed in gas plants, maybe because the coal plants are older or being phased out.

There's also the matter of initial thermal efficiency, with coal fired plants mostly running near 45% and nukes mostly running near 35%. Of course, with CCS (Carbon Capture), the clean air folks are doing their best to lower the efficiencies of those coal plants to the mid-30's... maybe just one more excuse to eliminate them.

Some good info in the source below, although as you know, there are countless other sources for this stuff, depending on how wants to creatively cull the data:

Cooling Power Plants - World Nuclear Association

Like coal and gas-fired plants, nuclear power plants use cooling to condense the steam used to drive the turbines that generate the electricity. Once-through, recirculating or dry cooling may be used. Most nuclear plants also use water to transfer heat from the reactor core.

world-nuclear.org

 

[bdhsfz6]

I guess I'd better look at my bill, and see if it's time to start shopping. Our electric bill has always been insane, I always get those emails each month saying our usage is "higher than X% of your neighbors", with X never lower than 70% in winter and 90% in summer.

I just checked emails and see the last notice was one of the lower ones, higher than 74% of neighbors, at 3394 kWh for December. I'd bet most of those neighbors have primarily electric heat, heat pumps have dominated new construction here since the 1980's, but we have wood, oil, and propane for the majority of the house.

Shopping for the best rate for your area of PA is easy by using PA Powerswitch:

Shop and Compare Electric Rates in PA

Find an electric supplier near you and compare energy options for your home or business in Pennsylvania. Enter your zip code to get started.

www.papowerswitch.com

 

[KennyG]

Nuclear plants do use more water per unit of power because they generally don't use superheat in the thermal cycle, but that's kind of a detail. When a plant uses once through cooling from a river or lake, the water is "used" but it's just taken in and discharged a few degrees warmer. Cooling towers use water to the extent they evaporate it, but that just ends up raining somewhere else. Nothing "uses" water in the sense that it remains water.

 

[jyoutz]

Nuclear plants do use more water per unit of power because they generally don't use superheat in the thermal cycle, but that's kind of a detail. When a plant uses once through cooling from a river or lake, the water is "used" but it's just taken in and discharged a few degrees warmer. Cooling towers use water to the extent they evaporate it, but that just ends up raining somewhere else. Nothing "uses" water in the sense that it remains water.

Well of course the earth is a zero escape system for water (and most everything else), but if a plant is drawing groundwater that’s a big local impact.

 

[JRH02]

Well of course the earth is a zero escape system for water (and most everything else), but if a plant is drawing groundwater that’s a big local impact.

We all live in different places. There's a difference between dirty industry and me drawing from my water well for inside use and putting the grey water right back into the ground or watering the garden. Or taking it to a far distant place that would choke without the strained resource of the Grand Canyon and everybody fighting over who is more important.

These are difficult times and not getting easier for some folk.

 

[KennyG]

Well of course the earth is a zero escape system for water (and most everything else), but if a plant is drawing groundwater that’s a big local impact.

There may be some plants that use groundwater but all the ones I worked on used rivers or lakes.

 

[jyoutz]

There may be some plants that use groundwater but all the ones I worked on used rivers or lakes.

Look at the Palo Verde plant in Arizona.

 

[KennyG]

Look at the Palo Verde plant in Arizona.

Palo Verde uses primarily waste water (sewage) from Phoenix.

 

[rontaki]

Palo Verde uses primarily waste water (sewage) from Phoenix.

I wonder if that causes brownouts?

 

[sd455dan]

Haaaaaaaaaa

Lets hope no 3 mile island event happens and SHTF.

 

[ponytug]

Palo Verde uses primarily waste water (sewage) from Phoenix.

The source of the Phoenix sewage water is the drinking water of which a little over 40% is groundwater, the balance being surface water for the Colorado river (36%) and other rivers (e.g. the Salt & Verde)

Air cooled plants are more expensive to build and to operate for a variety of reasons (e.g. due to smaller temperature differences, difference in heat exchanger efficiencies, and energy costs associated with air cooling).

Our local utility proudly announced lower rates for 2026, and then published sample low/medium/high usage bills, and only the sample high usage showed any savings (1x2%).

All the best,

Peter

 

[Oaktree]

In PA, where I live, we can shop for the best electric rates. I've been doing this for several years, but even these "competitive" prices have almost doubled since November of 2025.

We have that option here too, looked into it and any savings would be minimal. Dunno how it is in Pa, but here our bill is divided into energy cost, and delivery cost with the delivery part of the bill being a shade over double the energy part. Even if you saved a penny or two per kWh, the delivery charges would be unchanged since they're based on kWh usage. At the amount of electricity we use, it's not worth the bother to save maybe $10/yr.

I just checked emails and see the last notice was one of the lower ones, higher than 74% of neighbors, at 3394 kWh for December.

Eek!!
What kind of server farm are you running that uses that much electricity in a month? We used in the neighborhood of 230 or so in December, which is generally our highest month...being inside more, short days so more lighting used (including outside Christmas lights).

People leaving the grid and generating their own power may become more and more popular.

Still, the payback period on home-generated power (most likely solar, maybe some wind) is quite long, and is highly dependent on where you live. Maybe if you're in Florida or the SW your payback might be a bit lower, PNW or northeast where winters tend to be cloudy (with the sun low in the sky) much longer. We get very little sun Nov-March at my house...just the time of year the extra would be most appreciated.

 

[WinterDeere]

Eek!!
What kind of server farm are you running that uses that much electricity in a month? We used in the neighborhood of 230 or so in December, which is generally our highest month...being inside more, short days so more lighting used (including outside Christmas lights).

I'm going to have to have a look at our home energy monitors, and figure that out. We have a half dozen computers running here, but only one is a real power hog (32-core workstation with quadruple monitors and big GPU), the rest are all laptops and wimpy all-in-ones.

It's a big house, with mostly incandescent and halogen lighting (200+ bulbs, but mostly lower wattages), so that doesn't help. In December, there's the usual Christmas lights, again all incandescent, so that usually gives us a big bump that month. We do run mini split heat pumps for the shop in my barn and my little music studio, but I can't imagine they consume much. There's one small (1000 watt?) electric baseboard in our 4th floor bathroom, but that's only on maybe an hour each morning and 2 hours each evening, and it's in a tiny bathroom that probably doesn't take much energy to heat.

We burn more electrons in summer, cooling the house and shop and heating the pool, but winter usage really shouldn't be so high. Our lights are on a lot, because my wife and kids only know how to use the "on" function of each light switch, and because my wife often goes to bed only an hour or three before the kids or I wake up in the morning. That could be a factor in winter...

Will investigate and see if I find anything interesting, but maybe not today!