Assuming certain constants, the average power bill fourteen years ago was about $82. What if it increased more than 5% every year? Would you notice then?
New Jersey’s electric bills increased 21% in 2025. DC went up 22.1%. North Dakota jumped up by almost a third (31%). Maine, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, and Washington all saw double-digit increases too. This is a problem. Other states felt it this year. Florida gets it next year. Are you ready?
The increases for Florida are small in 2026, but over the next four years it is going to get silly. The reason, in part, is the demand that Artificial Intelligence data centers will put on the grid. To give you some perspective, one data center can use as much power as one hundred thousand homes. AI is here to stay, and our future overlords use a lot of power, and their data centers are opening up everywhere. This will affect us financially for sure, but also has the potential to affect the reliability of the current grid.
Consumer advocacy groups are fighting it. Their position is that existing residential customers should not be expected to subsidize the power needs of large tech companies. That makes sense, but how do you think that fight will go?
Traditionally it has been a losing battle. These giant companies have a lot of influence. Some say too much. Without getting political one way or another, the reality is we are going to see some uncomfortable increases in power bills. For many, this is stretching already thin household budgets even thinner.
Our approach to promoting solar has always been to point out the financial benefit. We stayed away from the warm and fuzzy save the world stuff, all the buzzwords, and especially the tax credit. We watched others grow questionable solar companies quickly with that stuff, and now we are watching many of them close their doors. Good riddance.
A more honest and ethical approach for us was to compare solar costs to electric expenses. We compared what a homeowner’s power bill was going to do with 5% increases every year to the cost of going solar. It took some forward thinkers to understand the eventual pay off, but it was by no means string theory. Those that truly understood the math, bought.
Guess what? We didn’t need to compare solar to what their bill was going to do with rate increases. We could just compare what it is going to cost for electricity, even if the rates never go up, and solar is still less. So much less, that for most families we can install solar, batteries, panel cleanings a couple times a year, and maintenance for less than that family is going to spend on electricity even if today’s rates never increase, but they will.
Do you know what that means? Homemade electricity is cheaper than store-bought. On top of it being less money, it is also better. The environmental warm and fuzzies are there. Energy independence, emergency back-up, and all the other buzzwords still apply. The tax credit could save some fam– wait, no, the tax credit is gone as of 1/1/2026.
If you have read any other posts or articles we write, you do not need to hear us celebrate the ending of this often-misrepresented federal incentive again. If you are one of the less than 20% of solar purchasers who might have benefitted from it, we are sorry to find glee in circumstances that frustrate you. However, for the many that bought solar for the tax credit, and the others who will not buy solar because the tax credit is gone, you are stepping over quarters to pick up nickels.
Just to recap other posts and articles, we are happy the credit is gone because so many other solar contractors used it to lie and cajole customers into going solar. Many of these unethical companies are now going out of business or being shut down. We are happy they are out of the way and look forward to adopting their orphaned customers to finish or repair botched installs and service them in the future.
Even if solar was attempted with one of these bad actors and thousands of dollars were lost in the process, solar done properly can still pay it all back. Solar at today’s rates buys and installs all the equipment. Avoided increases will pay for any losses from a botched attempt. Free electricity once the system has been paid off will show an ROI. Solar makes sense, no matter what.
