With the summer heat behind us, New Yorkers are finally getting a break from one of the scourges of the summer months: high energy bills. Across the state, electric bills hit a new record this season, averaging more than $200 per household in July, according to federal data. How did powering our homes get so expensive? New York Focus’s climate and environment reporter Colin Kinniburgh walks us through.

The first thing to understand about your energy bill is that it’s split into two main parts: supply and delivery.

“Supply,” sometimes labeled “commodity” on a bill, is essentially the price of energy on wholesale markets. In New York, where gas is widely used to heat homes and about half of the state’s electricity comes from gas plants, that number is closely tied to gas prices. (Nuclear and hydroelectricity make up most of the rest of the state’s electric supply.)

Utility companies, like Con Edison or National Grid, are not allowed to earn a profit on energy supply. They’re required to sell it to customers at the same price they bought it.

The “delivery” portion of your bill pays for all the infrastructure and staff it takes to get that energy to your home. Every few years, if a company wants to charge customers more, they file those rate hikes with state regulators, who review a utility’s proposed budget line by line and approve or deny expenses. This is where utilities make money: They are allowed to earn a fixed rate of return on the investments that regulators approve, typically around 8 to 10 percent.

Here’s what the breakdown has looked like across New York’s six major electric utilities over the past decade:

Chances are, yes. Since 2022, every major private energy utility in the state has filed for rate hikes. Earlier this summer, regulators approved hikes for Central Hudson, which provides electricity and gas to much of the Hudson Valley, and National Grid’s downstate branches, which supply gas to Long Island and the outer boroughs of New York City.

Central Hudson is in the process of applying for even more hikes, and National Grid’s upstate branch has a case pending as well. So do National Fuel Gas, in western New York, and Orange & Rockland, in the northern suburbs of New York City.

This year alone, the consumer advocacy group Public Utility Law Project has intervened in eight rate cases. PULP’s executive director, Laurie Wheelock, told me the group averaged two to three cases annually before the pandemic.

And the bill increases have been significant. In the most recent major rate case, finalized in August, regulators approved immediate hikes of roughly 20 percent for National Grid gas customers in New York City and Long Island. That’s an increase of more than $30 a month for the average customer using gas heating. And bills will keep going up the next two years. By spring 2026, the average customer’s bill will be another $30 higher.

If you ask climate groups what’s driving up rates, they’ll point to the rising costs of maintaining and expanding gas infrastructure — even as the state’s climate law mandates a transition away from fossil fuels. If you ask business groups, they’ll point to the cost of new clean energy — both the solar and wind farms backed by state subsidies, and electric infrastructure built by utilities themselves. If you ask utilities, they’ll point to taxes, inflation, and other factors they say are out of their control. Others will point to corporate greed, noting that utilities are allowed to make roughly a 10 percent profit on their multibillion dollar investments.

So which is it, really? The short answer is “all of the above.” The precise answer, in each rate case, is buried in thousands of pages of documents that can be hard to decipher without a team of lawyers, economists, and engineers.

That said, the state has put out some reports that give us some idea of the clean energy side of the ledger.

The Public Service Commission, which regulates energy in New York, has calculated that state climate policies accounted for four to 10 percent of the average electric bill in 2022, or $6 to $9 per month, depending on the utility. In other words, climate policy has not been a leading driver of rate hikes to date, but we’re still in the very early stages of the state’s energy transition.

By law, the Public Service Commission is tasked with ensuring “safe, reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates.” Regulators routinely cut utilities’ rate hike requests by a third or more. But those initial requests are getting bigger and bigger, and the final rate hikes are still hard for many New Yorkers to afford. Despite three rounds of debt relief payments since the beginning of the pandemic, New Yorkers still owed a whopping $1.8 billion to their utilities as of July — nearly as much they did before the state intervened.

Climate and consumer advocacy groups say that it’s in part because utilities have the upper hand in the rate case process. They can charge customers for the millions they spend on lawyers and other experts helping them push for higher rates. Watchdog groups can’t do that. And the agency that helps the Public Service Commission scrutinize utilities’ rate hike requests is understaffed. All of this has led some groups, like AARP New York, to conclude that the system is broken.

On TikTok, audience engagement editor Alex Arriaga explains what’s going on with your rising energy bill. 

Yes, there are a few different ways to get involved. For every rate case, there are both in-person and virtual public hearings, where anyone can sign up to speak. Recent hearings on the upstate National Grid case drew a few dozen attendees each in Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo, with more joining online in late September.

Anyone can also submit written comments on an open rate case through the Department of Public Service’s docket system. (You can find a list of pending electric and gas rate cases on the agency’s website.)

If you’re more committed, you can register as a formal party for a rate case, which allows you to participate in the months-long, closed-door negotiations that typically decide a utility’s final rates. This process can be difficult to navigate for the uninitiated, though. Watchdog groups like the Public Utility Law Project, Alliance for a Green Economy, and Sane Energy Project periodically host trainings to help people learn the ropes.

Keep in mind: Even for the most committed person, it can be hard to have much of an impact on a rate case as an individual, given the resources that big, corporate players bring to the table.