This is so fascinating to me. Can anyone provide the background? Why have utility prices gone up so much?
Eta: this article makes it seem like it's not new charges? https://www.14news.com/2025/08/06/centerpoint-officials-explain-newly-formatted-electric-bills/
I had not heard about this either. We are on Duke up here. I looked a bunch of years ago and the rate was .11 cents per kwh. That's pretty cheap. Now I'm interested in looking again.
There are many places in the world that present like they are paying extremely high rates.
There's not really competition in utilities, it's supposed to be "regulated".
I work on large infrastructure projects and north America has been underfunding maintenance for like 70 years. We don't pay enough for utilities at all and we're so used to it. Especially public utilities that have political pressure to keep rates low.
This article is kind of like my nightmare. If the utility has fees on top of usage rates that cover maintenance and capital improvement, it is so easy for people think it's a cash grab when it's really trying to fill a gaping hole in funding. It's no fun trying to safely operate a chronically under funded public utility 😬
As an uninformed resident, this is frustrating to learn, or hear confirmed.
I personally am so conditioned to assume all rates and fees are ways to keep padding executive bonuses, keep investors getting paid dividends only taxed at 1% instead of my 22%, and have nothing to do with supporting long term goals.
Maybe regulation is the only way to force investment in infrastructure and cap executive compensation and investor profit.
Maybe the government should run it since there should be no profit involved in utilities providing the basics of modern life, oh wait, they definitely won't screw all that up either, ha
IIRC Centerpoint is a Texas-based company, and they immediately jacked up prices when they bought up Evansville-based Vectren.
Turns out huge monopolies are checks notes bad for consumers.