What’s Driving Up The Cost Of Electricity? Group Says It’s Not Renewables

Heavy reliance on fossil fuels – coal and natural gas – is driving up electricity prices in many regions of the country.

That’s the conclusion of Energy Innovation Policy and Technology, a nonpartisan research group.

The group specifically cites West Virginia and its near total reliance on coal to supply its power. Coal-fired plants are aging and more expensive to maintain, while coal itself has a harder time competing with gas and renewables, particularly wind and solar.

The state depends on coal for 89 percent of its electricity, the highest percentage of any state.

Other states that have gone big on gas have found themselves paying for the volatility of gas prices in a global market, the group concluded, as well as extreme weather events that have squeezed supplies.

Electricity rates increased the fastest in West Virginia, California, Indiana and New England, the group found, though the reasons varied across states and regions.

In West Virginia, the group’s report cited the state’s coal fleet, most of which is at least 50 years old. The Public Service Commission has allowed the state’s dominant electric utilities, Mon Power and Appalachian Power, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on environmental compliance upgrades at the plants.

The upgrades, paid for by electricity customers, will keep the plants running beyond 2028, possibly until 2040.

Meanwhile, the group says, the cost of wind, solar and battery storage has decreased and would be a more economically reasonable choice.