Summer weather is here: Heat advisories were in effect last week from California and Utah to Texas and Florida. In the coming days, the National Weather Service forecasts hazardous heat in 11 states across the Gulf and southern Atlantic coasts, with more than 34 million people facing what’s categorized as a major heat risk.
For most Americans, the heat means you’re either dipping into a pool or staying indoors and making sure that the air conditioning is turned up. This year, that comfort from sweltering weather will cost more than it did last summer, thanks to the trend of increasing electricity rates.
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“For a vast majority of Americans, these significantly higher energy prices pose very fundamental household-level challenges,” Sanya Carley, faculty director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, told Straight Arrow.
Straight Arrow’s exclusive data analysis
The financial impact is not spread equally across all 50 states. It’s concentrated in areas where Carley described the “double whammy” in places seeing higher energy prices that outpace inflation and extreme heat.
In 2025, the average American household spent $112 more on electricity during the combined months of June, July and August than they spent in 2021. Straight Arrow analyzed data on monthly electricity rates by state and regional differences in summertime electricity consumption from the Energy Information Administration. The analysis found summertime electricity costs increased the most in the South and Northeast.
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Another policy solution, highlighted by Carley, is state laws that bar utilities from disconnecting customers during hot periods. Twenty-five states now have heat-related disconnection protections, a trend Carley is hopeful will continue given the life-threatening nature of going without power during hot weather.
“There are already so many other households that are essentially on the margins that they could become compromised as energy bills continue to rise,” Carley said.
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