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Why has electricity gotten so expensive in America? Since 2019, utility spending on the power grid’s “last mile” distribution system — specifically poles and wires, underground equipment, and transformers — has surged. My latest for

@heatmap_news

: heatmap.news/energy/why-is-

Stacked area chart titled “Utilities Are Now Spending Much More on Poles & Wires.” It shows annual capital expenditures by U.S. electricity utilities, in billions of dollars, from 2019 to 2023. Spending categories are color-coded: generation (blue), transmission (yellow), distribution (red), and other (gray). Distribution grows steadily, rising from around $30 billion in 2019 to nearly $50 billion in 2023, becoming the largest category. Transmission also increases slightly, while generation declines. The chart highlights that overall utility capital spending has risen since the pandemic, exceeding $90 billion in 2023, with most growth coming from distribution.

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7:09 AM · Aug 25, 2025

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Habadashery

@ThreeHatsInARow

Aug 25

Does this category include tech for net metering or is that infrastructure build-out mostly over?

Great question. Metering is included in the distribution category, but it’s a fairly small driver of overall cost inflation compared to poles and wires, underground equipment, and transformers.

Infrastructure costs eating everyone alive while we're trying to run local AI. This is why efficient model deployment matters more than model size. Smaller, faster, cheaper > bigger, better, broke.

Smarter growth = lower long-term energy costs

Here in Texas, transmission and infrastructure build out costs from the renewables onslaught has meaningfully driven up the cost of electricity. Behind-the-meter power generation is the only tool to challenge the T&D monopolies. If you don’t play in their sandbox, you don’t

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(((Matthew Lewis))) cults & consequences

@mateosfo

Aug 25

The costs of betting the climate farm on electric sprawl are a total political defeat for climate action -- due to the insane, politically toxic costs of electric sprawl. Would love to see you write about this.

I imagine tariffs on poles (steel/aluminum/Canadian wood), wires (copper), and electrical equipment from China doesn't help.

Interesting insights, Robinson! Investing in the grid is crucial, but UAE's example of strategic sustainable projects shows that clear energy planning can lead to cost efficiency and more benefits!

What’s wild is how much of this spend is still just poles and wires. If we treated distributed resources as part of the solution instead of a problem, we wouldn’t need to keep hardening the old model at this scale

about what intermittent renewables?

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Hermes

@AlloHermes

I wish my electricity was American "expensive"

Russ Hunt

@grhunt27

How is Bibi Netanyahu different than Hitler ? Master Race = God's entitled chosen people Territory expansion = West Bank & Gaza Genocide = Gaza

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Tyler Norris

@tylerhnorris

To justify its offshore wind policy, Trump admin officials have claimed the resource provides no capacity value — but this is obviously false for anyone remotely familiar with the capacity market. Even PJM rates offshore wind at nearly 70% ELCC (meaning for every installed MW,

Don't be fooled: AI data centers are driving your utility bills higher, with no relief in sight. Let's examine a few reasons why AI data centers are pushing generation costs higher for *all* of us, even if "fixed costs" are being spread out across more electric sales.

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Simon Mahan

@SimonMahan

Aug 25

If a city requires 1,000 megawatts for power, and a new 1,000 megawatt data center shows up, necessitating a doubling of the system size, how much do rates for existing customers increase?

Show this poll

Some argue data centers should pay 100% of their own transmission costs. Sounds fair on the surface — but that’s not how our electric system was built. Transmission has always been socialized across customers and classes. In defense of data center transmission cost allocation.

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Doug Lewin

@douglewinenergy

Texas could lose almost as much power as our entire summer peak demand. Energy Innovation’s modeling shows that under the new federal budget bill, Texas stands to lose 77 gigawatts of new renewable generation over the next decade.

Two-thirds solar.

One-third wind. And

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