Our Electric Rates Continue to Climb Because of Greedy Utilities and Climate Grift

 We are continually told so much about our electric systems that simply isn’t true. 

This means that we are paying more for our electricity than we should, and utilities and green grifters are the reason. The green grift is based on the misinformation that life-giving CO2—that we must breath in and exhale with every breath—that is greening our world and increasing crop yields must be lowered. Somehow, this will stop global warming and make our weather better.

We are told wind and solar will lower our electric costs. It is just the opposite.

Wind produces electricity about 30% of the time and solar 20% of the time. Solar produces little or no electricity for the first and last hour of the day, which is important because our daily peak demand is from about 5 to 9 PM. This means on demand electricity must ramp up when the sun is setting or out go the lights.

If there is a lot of solar electricity, the natural gas plants run part-time or in spinning reserve. This is running at idle, using fuel without selling any electricity, causing them to charge more.

It is like keeping your car idling to rescue part-time solar or wind cars.

To use an analogy, a family has gas cars that serve their needs. They buy wind and solar powered cars that only work when the wind blows or the sun shines—and because the government pays half. 

Their cost of cars just went up tremendously, which is exactly what is happening to our electric grids. 

Adding wind and solar to our electric grid means that we have to pay for them and for the on demand natural gas, coal, and nuclear power. This is expensive.

Wind and solar get a 50% tax subsidy to build and production subsidies for the electricity they make. 

It is even worse because the electric grids pay the highest price for all electricity including lowest bidders. Due to government subsidies, wind and solar always bid lowest, so they are always chosen first. They are then paid the highest price the grid pays, and there are no savings whatsoever from adding so-called “cheaper” subsidized wind and solar. 

It would be like Amazon hiring a number of companies to provide delivery services and asking them to bid, and then paying all of them the highest price that was bid. This practice needs to end.

It gets worse. When electric utilities spend a billion dollars adding industrial sized solar panel installations, they get 50% of that back in taxpayer subsidies. 

They then add a guaranteed capital rate of return, typically 8 to 12% in profits on the money they borrowed to build it. Electric utility customers must pay higher prices for this guaranteed profit, even though the electric utility is really only spending half as much of the money they borrow to build it.

Legislators need to change this too. Paying guaranteed profits on government subsidies drives up electricity costs and isn’t fair to ratepayers or taxpayers.

It doesn’t stop there. Since utility companies get this guaranteed profit on money they borrow for electric plants, they are incentivized to close plants before they have served their full useful life. 

Often, they have hundreds of millions in outstanding bonds for the closed electric plants they borrowed the money for, which incentivizes utilities to close plants before they serve their full-useful life and build new ones. This is why they close down coal plants and replace them with natural gas plants—this is the green grift we pay for in our electric rates.

They use the climate scam as an excuse.

Electricity users should not have to continue to pay for profits on the loans that are outstanding for closed plants. Utilities shouldn’t get money for nothing, especially profits from plants that no longer exist.

States need to end this practice as well. 

Never mind that China and India are building hundreds of coal plants, because coal is low-cost and reliable. They then sell us 80% of the things needed for the green grift because they can make them cheaper. Real pollution and CO2 emissions continue to climb, and we pay more for energy. 

Electric users need our elected leaders to correct these injustices. We are paying more for our electricity every month than we should because of these practices and unnecessary climate policies.

Frank Lasee is president of Truth in Energy and Climate and a former Wisconsin State Senator. 

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2025/04/03/our_electric_rates_continue_to_climb_because_of_greedy_utilities_and_climate_grift_1101708.html