Anonymous
02/23/2026 15:54
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Would solar panels help? We weren’t on a position to buy or lease them previously, and now the federal subsides have been taken away. Wondering if investing in solar would make a difference.
I have solar. I also have oil heat and a new heat pump installed two years ago.
Yes, solar helps a lot. The heat pushed my average electric bill up about $60 a month but cut my oil bill by more than $100 monthly on the budget plan. Mainly because the oil doesn't kick in until temperatures drop below like 35 or 40.
I've never had a monthly electric bill of more than $200, and that's in either extreme summer head or this past month. Shoulder season it's around $60 or $70. Used to be about $45 or $50 before the new heat pump.
Bottom line is solar seems to help a LOT. Been in the house 7 years. Never had a high electric bill. And my monthly gas bill is $125 (even in the summer -- see the budget option).
House is 4 BR, 3 1/2 BA, about 2,900 square feet. So, not huge but not tiny either. We do have replacement windows, which helps.
Anonymous
02/23/2026 15:48
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Would solar panels help? We weren’t on a position to buy or lease them previously, and now the federal subsides have been taken away. Wondering if investing in solar would make a difference.
it can definitely make a difference if you have the funds to invest in it, but the payback period is now much longer due to the loss of the subsidies. SRECs in DC are much more favorable in DC as opposed to MD or VA, but the penalty to the utility is designed to fall by $20 per year until it hits $300 in 2033 (currently $440 in 2026; see https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/laws/24-314 ).
in 2042 the penalty will drop to $100 so DCs SRECs will be more in line with marylands $50 in 2042 unless the council enacts stricter legislation before then. current DC SREC pricing appears to be around $350 on the open market. (basically, the spread is because it's gotta be cheaper for PEPCO to make the effort to buy an SREC than just pay the straight penalty.)
We don't quite generate enough solar to cover our annual usage, so while most months we just pay a $20 interconnect fee, we do have a couple $200 bills-- where previously we were spending about $3000/yr on electricity. and we made around $8000 last year in SRECs. Basically, it'll take about 3.5 years from installation for our system to have completely paid for itself-- after the subsidies. with a lower SREC payment and no subsidies, that might look more like 9 years for complete payback if we installed an identical system today.
one note is that at the time we were getting quotes (aug 2022) for solar we were paying 11.7cents per kWh, and in the latest bill we're paying more like 22.6cents per kWh. so I guess I need to up my annual "money not sent to pepco for electricity" estimate to more like $6000 per year.
I am literally looking at my most recent DC Pepco bill and was charged 16.2cents per kWh. I don't think it's at 22.6 cents, but you consume more than me so maybe they charge a premium above a certain usage.
Anonymous
02/23/2026 15:43
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Would solar panels help? We weren’t on a position to buy or lease them previously, and now the federal subsides have been taken away. Wondering if investing in solar would make a difference.
it can definitely make a difference if you have the funds to invest in it, but the payback period is now much longer due to the loss of the subsidies. SRECs in DC are much more favorable in DC as opposed to MD or VA, but the penalty to the utility is designed to fall by $20 per year until it hits $300 in 2033 (currently $440 in 2026; see https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/laws/24-314 ).
in 2042 the penalty will drop to $100 so DCs SRECs will be more in line with marylands $50 in 2042 unless the council enacts stricter legislation before then. current DC SREC pricing appears to be around $350 on the open market. (basically, the spread is because it's gotta be cheaper for PEPCO to make the effort to buy an SREC than just pay the straight penalty.)
We don't quite generate enough solar to cover our annual usage, so while most months we just pay a $20 interconnect fee, we do have a couple $200 bills-- where previously we were spending about $3000/yr on electricity. and we made around $8000 last year in SRECs. Basically, it'll take about 3.5 years from installation for our system to have completely paid for itself-- after the subsidies. with a lower SREC payment and no subsidies, that might look more like 9 years for complete payback if we installed an identical system today.
one note is that at the time we were getting quotes (aug 2022) for solar we were paying 11.7cents per kWh, and in the latest bill we're paying more like 22.6cents per kWh. so I guess I need to up my annual "money not sent to pepco for electricity" estimate to more like $6000 per year.
Anonymous
02/23/2026 15:27
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:170 in December, 286 today. It's never been this high.
3200 sq. ft house with gas heating, 3 occupants, all LED, no excessive lighting etc.
Is this due to rising rates associated with proliferating AI data centers we're forced to subsidize, or am I missing something else?
I got a 912 sq ft house and paid $282 in February. Which I thought was a lot for keeping the house at 68. I have electric. What was your electric+gas?
68 is pretty warm, given that we had mornings in the single digits. 60-65 would have probably cut your bill in half - it's ok if you don't like it that cold, but the complaints about high bills when keeping your house pretty warm is kind of dense.
68 is freezing cold. 60-65 would be insanely cold inside. Who keeps their house that cold? 72 is the normal temperature.
Felt that way until we had our insulation corrected. Would run and run and still feel freezing. Now, we have it at 67/68 during the day. If its super sunny out I will drop it to 64/65 due to thermal heat. At 730pm it drops to 63 for the rest of the evening until morning. We have down comforters and duvets in all rooms.
We do have a wall heater in our sons room that turns on only if the room dips below 62 because he sleeps alone. I sleep with my DH and toddler in one room so body heat increases as the night goes on- no wall heater backup needed.
60-67 is ideal sleeping temperature. Before insulation was updated, our thermostat was set to 66 at night due to the cost of heating the house and the top floor was registering 59/60. Should have done that project years ago. Our electric (for wall heater) and gas (main source of heat) dropped this past month compared to the previous month and last year. It was so bad and I am pissed at how much energy, both in cost and mindpower, we spent trying to keep warm during the winter or cold during the summer.
Anonymous
02/23/2026 15:14
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Would solar panels help? We weren’t on a position to buy or lease them previously, and now the federal subsides have been taken away. Wondering if investing in solar would make a difference.
it can definitely make a difference if you have the funds to invest in it, but the payback period is now much longer due to the loss of the subsidies. SRECs in DC are much more favorable in DC as opposed to MD or VA, but the penalty to the utility is designed to fall by $20 per year until it hits $300 in 2033 (currently $440 in 2026; see https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/laws/24-314 ).
in 2042 the penalty will drop to $100 so DCs SRECs will be more in line with marylands $50 in 2042 unless the council enacts stricter legislation before then. current DC SREC pricing appears to be around $350 on the open market. (basically, the spread is because it's gotta be cheaper for PEPCO to make the effort to buy an SREC than just pay the straight penalty.)
We don't quite generate enough solar to cover our annual usage, so while most months we just pay a $20 interconnect fee, we do have a couple $200 bills-- where previously we were spending about $3000/yr on electricity. and we made around $8000 last year in SRECs. Basically, it'll take about 5 years from installation for our system to have completely paid for itself-- after the subsidies. with a lower SREC payment and no subsidies, that might look more like 9 years for complete payback if we installed an identical system today.
Anonymous
02/23/2026 14:42
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
I think between 2020 and 2025 data centers' share of electricity consumption in Virginia went from 5% to 40%
Anonymous
02/23/2026 14:41
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Would solar panels help? We weren’t on a position to buy or lease them previously, and now the federal subsides have been taken away. Wondering if investing in solar would make a difference.
DC here with gas radiator heat. We have solar panels and our bill is $22/month for the minimum interconnection charge.
The sad thing is that we generate excess electricity and Pepco sells it back to our neighbors at a ridiculously high mark up.
Anonymous
02/23/2026 10:46
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
OP, you have gas heat. You don't get to complain
Anonymous
02/23/2026 10:45
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Data centers
Why are we paying for the electricity data centers are using? Shouldn't part of their business model be paying their own electric bill?
I’m confused by this and concerned about it as well.
It reminds me of when I was traveling in Vietnam and someone asked our tour guide about why it was so hot but nobody used air conditioning. He asked the guy “Are air conditioners super expensive here?” He was told no, air conditioners are very cheap. The problem is that electricity is very expensive because it was their number one export. People couldn’t afford to use air-conditioning because they couldn’t afford the electricity. This could totally happen here with the data center use. That’s a question for the politicians, they really need to do something to make sure that the data centers are the ones paying more, not people like us. But I doubt we will be protected over big business. The Vietnam example isn’t exactly the same, but it’s informative enough to be concerning.
+1
And I don't think we'll ever get a straight answer.
If there's a huge amount of "new demand" it's not in their best interest to isolate this new demand (data centers) but instead to upgrade everything, scale everything, and spread out the cost to existing customers because we "needed" that scaling. Um, no we didn't.
Anonymous
02/23/2026 09:44
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You were probably using auxiliary heat during the cold stretch which is electric and really expensive.
Stupid answer. They have gas heat.
Auxiliary heat is electric...
Why would you have auxiliary heat with a gas furnace?
Can’t tell you that but it’s what I’ve got.
You have a heat pump with a gas backup. Very different from a gas-only system.
No, I have the opposite. The backup is electric.
This seems very unique. 99% of the time the gas furnace backs up the heat pump as gas is almost always cheaper than electricity.
Where are you located?
Anonymous
02/23/2026 08:28
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:I paid $126 for January-Feburary, but bill was 180 and a relief fund paid for 53 of it. Pepco, Coco, 5500 Square feet. Extraordinarily cheap for us.
why is a relief fund subsidizing someone who lives in s 5500 sq foot house?
Anonymous
02/23/2026 08:27
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:170 in December, 286 today. It's never been this high.
3200 sq. ft house with gas heating, 3 occupants, all LED, no excessive lighting etc.
Is this due to rising rates associated with proliferating AI data centers we're forced to subsidize, or am I missing something else?
I got a 912 sq ft house and paid $282 in February. Which I thought was a lot for keeping the house at 68. I have electric. What was your electric+gas?
68 is pretty warm, given that we had mornings in the single digits. 60-65 would have probably cut your bill in half - it's ok if you don't like it that cold, but the complaints about high bills when keeping your house pretty warm is kind of dense.
68 is freezing cold. 60-65 would be insanely cold inside. Who keeps their house that cold? 72 is the normal temperature.
Anonymous
02/23/2026 08:25
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Data centers
Why are we paying for the electricity data centers are using? Shouldn't part of their business model be paying their own electric bill?
I’m confused by this and concerned about it as well.
It reminds me of when I was traveling in Vietnam and someone asked our tour guide about why it was so hot but nobody used air conditioning. He asked the guy “Are air conditioners super expensive here?” He was told no, air conditioners are very cheap. The problem is that electricity is very expensive because it was their number one export. People couldn’t afford to use air-conditioning because they couldn’t afford the electricity. This could totally happen here with the data center use. That’s a question for the politicians, they really need to do something to make sure that the data centers are the ones paying more, not people like us. But I doubt we will be protected over big business. The Vietnam example isn’t exactly the same, but it’s informative enough to be concerning.
Anonymous
02/23/2026 08:20
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Same thing is happening at our house. My DH actually had someone come out to the house and look at our HVAC because the bill was so high he thought something was wrong.
Anonymous
02/23/2026 01:00
Subject: Electric bill up 70% from Dec. to Feb.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My parents in NY had an outrageous bill. A few years ago, the wonderful liberals in NY decided to shut down a nuclear power plant because it was "bad" for the environment. A few environmental activists got their way. Now energy bills are so high in Westchester, the liberal politicians are hiding and the environmental activists nowhere to be found either.
Nuclear is the most expensive form of power by far. What happened is natural gas went from being absolutely dirt cheap to not so cheap.
New poster. Nuclear is expensive for start up costs. The building and regulatory is expensive. But once built, the ongoing operating costs are relatively low. Indian point could have generated for anther 20 years economically. Shutting it made nyiso much more subject to changes in nat gas prices. So very likely correct to claim that shutting indian point raised prices. That doesn't necessarily mean it was a wrong decision, but nonetheless a predictable consequence. (I personally favor more nuclear in our energy mix but recognize there are pros and cons.)