‘A cost of climate change’: Why the price of electricity is outpacing inflation

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1. tldr:

   > MEYER: That’s right. So I think the biggest driver of the run-up in electricity prices we’ve seen over the past four or five years, because electricity prices really shot up since the pandemic – they’ve been rising twice as fast as overall inflation – is the grid itself. And not only the grid itself, it’s actually the most local part of the power grid, like that last mile from substations to your house or business.

   > INSKEEP: I don’t automatically get that because the wires are already there and have been there for generations. Why would that get more expensive?

   > MEYER: In some cases, it’s because they’ve had to be rebuilt because of a natural disaster. And in some cases, they are just getting old. It’s actually exactly the fact that they’ve been there for generations. They’re getting old and they need to be replaced. And in some cases, it’s because maybe a wildfire burned through an entire area, especially out west. And now the utility has to go in, and not only does it have to rebuild that grid in the local area, it also has to rebuild it in a way that’s not as likely to cause a wildfire in the future.

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