LETTER: A one-way street on electricity prices

I keep hearing that our electric bills should be falling. After all, we’ve switched to LED lighting, invested in Energy Star appliances and poured billions into solar panels and wind farms. We were told these changes would make electricity cleaner, cheaper and more efficient.

So why do our electric bills never seem to decrease?

Despite widespread efficiency upgrades and massive investments in renewable energy, households continue to pay more every year. The promised savings never seem to reach the people actually paying the bills. Instead, we’re asked to accept higher rates as unavoidable, while being assured that long-term benefits are just around the corner.

If efficiency is up and production costs are supposedly down, the public deserves a clear, honest explanation for why those gains aren’t reflected in our monthly statements. Energy policy should be transparent and accountable — not a one-way street on which consumers are always told to pay more and ask fewer questions.

It’s time for utilities and policymakers to explain, in plain language, why the cost of electricity only seems to move in one direction.