Why Your Electric Bill Keeps Rising — and What CRE Professionals and CPOs Can Do About It

What’s Driving Bills Higher

If your electricity bill feels higher every quarter, you’re not imagining it: Demand for power is rising faster than we can build power plants and power lines. Data centers are the headline driver, and electrification across homes, vehicles, and industry adds to the load. When demand outruns supply, wholesale prices jump, utilities invest in upgrades, and costs show up on retail bills. Commercial real estate (CRE) owners and charge point operators (CPOs) will experience that squeeze through higher per-kWh costs, demand charges (fees tied to your single biggest power spike each month), and slower timelines to energize new sites. This article summarizes key factors affecting energy prices and immediate strategies for managing these costs.

Batteries Help—But Aren't a Full Solution

Utility-scale battery systems, often two to four hours in duration, are great at shaving short peaks or smoothing the solar “duck curve.” However they're not yet able cover multi-day heat waves or winter lulls. Moreover, many around-the-clock plants retired in recent years haven’t been replaced one-for-one with equally “always-on” capacity. Grid operators—especially in fast-growing regions—are rewriting playbooks to manage big new loads. For example, PJM, the nation’s largest grid, is actively workshopping rules for large load additions. Still, even collectively, these critical initiatives cannot yet capacity in pace with demand growth.

Global Crosswinds You Can’t Ignore

China continues its expansion of coal plants to address potential energy shortages. In the U.S., equipment makers are ramping natural-gas turbine production as developers seek firm capacity to backstop wind, solar, and rising load. You don’t need to chase every policy headline to get the takeaway for your P&L: Plan for a tighter grid and a choppier power bill.

Practical Moves for the Next Budget Cycle

Make your site demand flexible. Most charging software can automatically reduce power for a few minutes when prices or local grid stress spike, then restore speed when rates ease. Done well, drivers barely notice, and you trim the expensive “spike” that triggers demand charges. Fleet depots should schedule charging to finish just-in-time for route departures instead of piling into the 6 PM peak.

Right-size a battery on site. Think of a 4-hour battery as insurance for your power bill: it clips the worst peaks, supports onsite solar, and can sometimes defer costly service upgrades. Critically, the battery must be appropriately sized to match your property's specific energy needs and tariff structure—Buying too much battery is wasteful; buying too little is ineffective. Be disciplined—model realistic cycling, plan for degradation, and focus the battery's work on the specific time windows where the utility charges the highest demand rates. Engineer for profit, not just for power.

Hedge for predictability. Many utilities offer options that trade a bit of average price for stability—think fixed-block energy, green tariffs, and time-of-use plans paired with operational controls. Multi-state CPOs can use retail PPAs as a financial hedge, layering contracts across markets to stabilize long-term power costs. This strategy isn’t about obtaining the “greenest” label on day one; rather, it’s about landing a predictable cost per kWh so you can price charging simply.

Site Like a Grid Planner

Treat siting as a grid decision, not just a real-estate consideration. A marquee tenant on a constrained feeder can cost you more over time than a “good enough” location with substation headroom and near-term upgrade plans. Ask utilities for pre-application data (hosting capacity, likely upgrade triggers) before you sign. If a transformer is the bottleneck, ask whether a non-wires alternative—like utility-owned storage—can speed energization.

Speed Up Interconnection by Standardizing Your Approach

Save months of development and deployment time by standardizing your technical documents. Reuse the same engineering diagrams, safety settings, and startup checklists across all your projects. Be proactive by ordering major equipment (long-lead gear) early and starting site construction (civil work) while the utility is reviewing the paperwork. Finally, always monitor new “large-load” rules from grid operators like PJM, as these rules will dictate your project’s schedule, queue priority, and cost sharing.

Keep Supply Options Open

Expect more gas peaker and combined-cycle plants in certain markets to firm up the system. Some hyperscalers are adding onsite generation that can free up local capacity for nearby loads—including your chargers. Nuclear SMRs may be an additional long term solution, but won’t help you meet a 2026 energization date. Coordinate locally: when a big user adds its own power, it may unlock capacity you can use.

Pursue These Policy Levers Today

Permitting reform for plants and power lines will lower costs over time; meanwhile, here are a few steps you can take now: 

• Enroll in demand response programs to get paid for brief turn-downs when the grid is stressed. 

• Ask about make-ready support for trenching and switchgear. 

• Look into financial incentives to help fund onsite batteries at public DC fast-charging sites.

  
  

Bottom Line: Control What You Can, Plan for What You Can’t

Bills are rising because demand is real and capacity is slow. These issues won’t be addressed overnight, but you can enact strategies like designing for flexibility, buying predictability, and co-planning with your utility. These three steps will keep kWh affordable for drivers, protect your margins from demand-charge surprises, and secure the power you need for your next round of sites—even on a tight, fast-changing grid.