- Utility bills are costing Americans more than ever, thanks to natural disasters rocking power grids.
- Companies have taken on billions in debt to bolster their networks against the storms, according to the WSJ.
- One in six American households is behind on their utility bills, the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association reported.
Americans will have to pay the price for a slight increase in devastating storms in the form of higher utility bills for 30 years.
Utility companies have invested heavily in bolstering their power grids in response to an influx of natural disasters, but those investments mean customers are the ones who will have to pay for the multi-billion dollar upgrades in their utility bills. energy, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks to a series of hurricanes and winter frosts over the past year, utility providers have taken on roughly $12.4 billion in debt and expect that amount to rise, said consulting firm Saber Partners LLC to the Journal.
Spending on electricity and natural gas from winter storm Uri — which wreaked havoc across the state of Texas in 2021, leaving millions of people without power or water for more than a week — alone could reach $13. billions of dollars, said an expert.
“Different groups of customers will pay over time. It may be different generations,” Saber Partners CEO Joseph Fichera told the WSJ.
Residents of New York, Texas, Louisiana, New Hampshire and Oklahoma pay the highest percentage of securitization fees on their monthly bills, according to data from Moody’s Investors Service.
“It’s really about finding the fairest way to cover the costs associated with putting the system back together,” Phillip May, CEO of Entergy Louisiana, told the WSJ.
According to a November release from the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, one in six households in the United States is behind on their utility bills. Families owe a total of $16.1 billion in August 2022, an increase of $8 billion from December 2019.
businessinsider
