A Severe Winter Means High Energy Bills

This briefing by RMI outlines the energy affordability crisis in the US, driven by high fossil fuel prices and rising electricity rates, and provides a toolkit of short-term and long-term regulatory solutions for state public utility commissions to reduce the energy burden on vulnerable households.

• High fossil fuel prices and a forecast for a colder winter are expected to increase average household energy bills by 10 percent for electricity and 28 percent for natural gas.
• Energy insecurity is widespread in the US; a November 2022 Census Bureau survey found that 43.4 million households could not pay their energy bill for at least one month in the previous year, with over 20 million reducing or forgoing necessities like food or medicine almost every month to pay energy bills.
• State public utility commissions (PUCs) can implement immediate relief measures, including shutoff moratoriums, expanding outreach for the federally funded Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and deploying arrearage management programs (AMPs).
• Regulators can address the volatility of fuel cost pass-throughs by implementing fuel cost-sharing structures, where utilities bear some risk of price increases. Examples include Hawaii, where the utility is responsible for 2 percent of the difference between projected and actual fuel costs (up to $2.5 million), and Montana, which uses fuel price bands.
• Long-term structural solutions include totex ratemaking, performance-based regulation, and leveraging federal funds from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), such as the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment Program, to transition away from fossil fuel infrastructure.

APA

RMI (2023). A Severe Winter Means High Energy Bills. https://rmi.org/resources/a-severe-winter-means-high-energy-bills/

Chicago

RMI. A Severe Winter Means High Energy Bills. 2023. https://rmi.org/resources/a-severe-winter-means-high-energy-bills/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=A Severe Winter Means High Energy Bills |date=23 January 2023 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/a-severe-winter-means-high-energy-bills/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2023severe, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{A Severe Winter Means High Energy Bills}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2023}, month = jan, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/a-severe-winter-means-high-energy-bills/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }