The Lowdown on High Power Prices – June 2021

Resources for the Future Podcast

Meredith Fowlie, Faculty Director of the Energy Institute, joins Daniel Raimi, host of Resources for the Future Podcast, in discussing high electricity prices that disproportionately burden low-income households.

“The key reason that California per-kilowatt-hour prices are high is that…we don’t pay much of a fixed charge at all, and instead, we’re paying these costs on a per-kilowatt-hour basis. So, what are these costs? They are infrastructure costs—transmission and distribution and power plants. They’re public programs like energy efficiency programs and subsidies for rooftop solar. And, increasingly going forward, [they] will include wildfire mitigation costs…A lot of different costs are showing up in those per-kilowatt-hour rates.”

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