[glxxyz]

Yes the people selling solar systems all factor in aggressive future electricity increases, it's best to also see how it looks with more conservative rate increases. By my calculation in a reply above with the interest free solar loan it's an 8% return over 14.3 years.

[thelastgallon]

Residential electricity rates have risen fast across the US—more than 30 percent on average since 2020 and almost double the rate of inflation: https://www.wired.com/story/power-bills-in-the-us-are-soarin...

[Spivak]

It will be interesting to see if this will make natural gas a more attractive source of residential heating as the price has remained relatively stable over the past 20 years.

The push for electrification seems like it relies on us metaphorically drowning in excess cheap electricity and want somewhere for it to go but right now the opposite it happening.

[ssuds]

>The price has remained relatively stable over the past 20 years

Not really, natural gas has immense exposure to geopolitics and the commodity markets: https://www.iea.org/commentaries/what-drives-natural-gas-pri...

There’s also the argument to be made (this has manifested in other countries) that as gas usage wanes and more homes electrify, nat gas costs will increase as the infrastructure costs are spread among fewer and fewer people

[Marsymars]

> There’s also the argument to be made (this has manifested in other countries) that as gas usage wanes and more homes electrify, nat gas costs will increase as the infrastructure costs are spread among fewer and fewer people

This has kinda wonky incentives though - if your fixed costs for gas are high but your marginal costs remain low and for whatever logistical reasons you can't cut the gas connection entirely, then your motivations are to move as much of your heating load over to gas as possible.

[Spivak]

I'm currently facing this dilemma when it comes to my new water heater purchase. The $/kJ actually delivered into the water difference is so significant despite gas being less efficient that I'm probably going to switch to gas. Electricity has gotten so expensive that even with an efficiency advantage it still loses on the order of $500-800 per year.

[Marsymars]

Is gas actually less efficient? I haven't had to work out the math myself yet, but there are some very salient variables - e.g. what's the energy source of the electricity? If it's a natural gas power plant, you're looking at like 30-60% efficiency of gas->electricity in the first place. Are you looking a at a heat pump heater? If so, how much of its energy would be pulling heat from the house that needs to be replaced by the home's heating supply anyway?

This is the kind of thing where a carbon tax is great for sorting out the pricing to match the externalities.

[caminante]

I skimmed the article (so forgive me if I'm off.) It appears to reference non-US markets and the parent was assuming US (my assumption).

AFAIK, the US has a mid-long outlook of gas oversupply. EU's market is broken and has 3x the price (c.f. Henry Hub v. TTF). I haven't seen any major forecasters predict reaching parity anytime soon. Hence, LNG export projects keep getting (over-)built to chase the arbitrage.

[bluGill]

Very regional though - my rates have not gone up.

[thelastgallon]

Electricity prices are going up nearly everywhere. Bitcoin and AI are a wealth transfer from everyone to the crypto/AI folks.

Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That's being passed on to customers: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-elec...

[geysersam]

That doesn't make any sense. Bitcoin miners get wealth from people buying Bitcoin, not from electricity customers. Same for AI. It's a wealth transfer from electricity customers to electricity producers if anything.

Most likely most of the increase is just temporary though. Electricity supply will increase to meet the sudden and unpredictable increase in demand.

[conradev]

I got solar for my parents in 2021 and the price increases were pretty aggressive recently: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610

[Ekaros]

Which to me is funny, when the electricity prices will clearly not rise when there is solar energy production from said panels. But might in other times.

[glxxyz]

I think the argument is that on average people are buying heat pumps and EVs faster they are installing solar panels but it’s not completely convincing though, power stations can be added.

Further north where I am solar can only ever be a small component of total electricity generation due to the dark snowy cloudy winter months with close to zero solar generation for weeks on end.

[adrianN]

Batteries for load shifting a few hours mitigate that quite a bit and are getting cheaper fast.

[glxxyz]

The issue for me with batteries is that in the summer I can produce in a day much more than I can use, and in winter I consume a lot and barely produce anything. This is where net metering steps in- I can ‘store’ all of my excess summer consumption in the grid in summer and get credit for it in winter.

A cheaper smaller system right sized for summer consumption with a battery would have my second best option, but for me never showed any potential payback due to the fixed costs of installation and the extra battery costs.

[adrianN]

Net metering is of course nice for consumers but it’s not sustainable for the grid operators.

[glxxyz]

It is for a fraction of consumers- power companies and governments are well aware of that.

[Reason077]

Exactly. Not a sustainable/scalable policy.

[brianwawok]

I have never had a prime time surcharge so I can’t do that trick. Think it’s because my baseload here is nuclear.