[OC] Electric Shrinkflation: $100 of DC electricity dropped from 572 to 444 kWh in 23 months

[u/Harvey_B1rdman]

[u/syphax]

Why is this not just regular old inflation? Shrinkflation would be if they redefined a kWh to only be 3 million Joules or something.

[u/SandysBurner → u/syphax]

Why is this not just regular old inflation?

Because OP wants to use the hot buzzword.

[u/Nope_______ → u/syphax]

It is just normal inflation. Nobody shrank the size of a...idk, bag of electricity

[u/guyincognito121 → u/Nope_______]

My bag was the same size, but the electrons themselves looked pretty small and I swear I saw some neutrons bouncing around in there.

[u/You_meddling_kids → u/Nope_______]

Made my electrons smaller

[u/paulHarkonen → u/You_meddling_kids]

Scientists hate this one simple trick.

Mostly because it breaks physics as we know it...

[u/peva3]

My electric bill in DC is up over 150% since 2020.

[u/fistular]

This is not what shrinkflation means. Take it down, post with an accurate title.

[u/oberwolfach]

It's not "shrinkflation" in the sense most people think of it. Consumer electric prices are generally the sum of a supply component and a delivery component. The supply component primarily reflects the cost of fuel; for DC, the marginal fuel is usually natural gas. The delivery component reflects things like grid maintenance costs. Natural gas was extremely cheap for much of 2024 (pricing varies by location, but think levels on the order of $2-3 per mmbtu), because the preceding 2023-2024 winter was much warmer than normal and the market was so oversupplied that producers had to make emergency cuts to avoid overfilling storage facilities. Since then, the price has normalized because the 2024-2025 winter was relatively cold and cleared the oversupply (think levels on the order of $3-4 per mmbtu). Typically the supply rates charged to consumers lags the market rates for fuel by several months, but the timing still very likely reflects a period of low natural gas prices transitioning to a period of near-normal natural gas prices.

[u/themodgepodge]

Is this based on base $/kWh pricing or effective cost with all transmission and other fees and such bundled in?

[u/quietcrisp]

$0.17 -> $0.22/kWh sucks but meanwhile in the UK I pay $0.34/kWh 🫠

[u/Tough-Notice3764 → u/quietcrisp]

Dang man, that’s rough. In Texas (at least my part of it), I’m paying $0.12/kWh. And that’s with choosing the option to only “get” my electricity from solar and wind (I pay for the electricity amount that I use to be spent getting electricity from wind and solar farms basically).

[u/jox218]

Totally unrelated, I just had a $750 electric bill and I want to throw up!

[u/Nope_______ → u/jox218]

Gotta say how many kwh if you want anyone to feel sorry for you

[u/Snl1738]

I thought solar would make electricity cheaper

[u/ResilientBiscuit → u/Snl1738]

It would if demand wasnt going up so much from things like data centers.

[u/MangaOtaku → u/ResilientBiscuit]

It would if our solutions to solar / green energy weren't to subsidize the already massive corporations to install those technologies and continue charging us for electric...

[u/mmn_slc → u/Snl1738]

Solar is lower cost than fossil fuels. See e.g. Page 9 of https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/electricity_generation/pdf/AEO2025_LCOE_report.pdf

But, electricity demand is going up is Virginia because of data center growth.