Meredith Fowlie on Rising Electricity Costs

Surging Power Costs Are Putting the Squeeze on Customers

November 1, 2025

The Wall Street Journal

Meredith Fowlie, Energy Institute Faculty Director, provides her perspective in the Wall Street Journal on the driving forces behind rapidly rising power bills and the diminishing degree of power which consumers have over energy consumption.

“’If strawberries are expensive, I’ll buy apples—there are substitutes,’ said Meredith Fowlie, an energy economist at the University of California, Berkeley. ‘Electricity, in the long run, there aren’t many substitutes.’”

Photo: wsj.com