A New Look at Why Electricity Prices Have Gone Up in Your ZIP Code

About this episode

This episode discusses the factors behind rising electricity prices and introduces a new public data platform for tracking electricity rates.

Electricity prices rose faster than overall inflation last year. Yet at the local level, it’s been difficult to know why. Is it data centers? Renewables? Aging infrastructure? Or something else more mysterious? Everyone in the political system — including senior Trump officials — wants to blame their favorite energy bugbear. But if we actually want to fix the problem, getting the real answer matters. Now, Heatmap and MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research are teaming up to answer this critical question. On this episode of Shift Key, Rob announces the launch of the  Electricity Price Hub , a new public data platform that provides monthly, utility-level estimates of residential electricity rates and bills across the United States going back to 2021, broken down by generation, transmission, and distribution costs. Joining Rob to discuss the tool are Brian Deese, an MIT Institute Innovation Fellow and the former director of the White House National Economic Council under President Biden, and Lauren Sidner, a senior advisor at MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy who previously served as a senior advisor to U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for…

People in this episode

Host: Robinson Meyer

Guests: Brian Deese, Lauren Sidner

Topics covered

• electricity prices
• data analysis
• energy policy
• renewable energy
• infrastructure
• economic trends

Keywords

• electricity prices
• data centers
• renewables
• infrastructure
• energy policy
• utility rates
• economic analysis

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Heatmap News, White House National Economic Council, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate

Books & works: What Americans Really Pay For Electricity

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