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☕ DrinkCoffeeAndProfit
Smart money moves before breakfast
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Inspiration Quote for the Day
“We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.”
Thomas Edison
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The Morning Ritual
Ray Used Less Power in June and His Bill Still Went Up
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Ray keeps his power bills in a shoebox. Last Sunday he pulled June out and set it beside June of last year. Same house, same two people, one window unit fewer.
He burned less electricity and paid more for it. That is not his utility being clever. It is the second half of the bill, the half that was never for sale.
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On the delivery half of that bill, a partner put a number.
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· · · Partner Message · · ·
The bulk order that keeps the lights on across 13 states just jumped from $2.2 billion to $14.7 billion, nearly 7x in one year, because data centers are draining the grid. There’s one energy source that runs 24/7 with no fuel, and Washington just preserved its tax credits through 2033 while terminating everyone else’s. Google signed for 15 years. Bill Gates invested $100 million. One company has spent sixty years building it.
This is an advertisement.
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In One Sip
► Residential power averaged `18.35` cents a kilowatt hour in June, against `17.48` a year earlier. Source: EIA Electric Power Monthly, June `2026`.
► The average household bought `930` kilowatt hours that month, down from `947`. The bill went from `$165.52` to `$170.65`. Source: same EIA series.
► One grid region covers `13` states and Washington. Its capacity price for the year that began June `1` is `$329.17` per megawatt day. Two delivery years earlier it was `$28.92`. Source: IEEFA on PJM auction results.
► One of those auctions alone works out to roughly `$18` a month on an average bill in western Maryland. In Ohio it is about `$16`. Source: IEEFA.
► The quiet part: utility spending on distribution now runs ahead of spending on transmission or on generation. That is the half of your bill a supplier switch never touches. Source: EIA, May 2025.
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Why It Matters for Your Money
Every power bill has two halves. Supply is the electricity itself. Delivery is the wires, the poles and the substations. It also buys the reserve capacity that has to exist for the hottest hour of the year.
Only the first half is shoppable. In a deregulated state you can change who sells you the electrons. Delivery stays where it is, set by a regulator, printed on the same bill.
Run Ray’s month at the national average. `930` kilowatt hours at `18.35` cents is `$170.65`. On many bills the delivery side is the larger half. Lift that half by `10%` and roughly `$8.50` a month appears, about `$102` a year, and no amount of shopping removes it.
That is the whole story of the last two years in one line. Usage flat or falling. Price per unit rising. The gap between those two facts is the buildout, arriving on households before it arrives anywhere else.
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The Wealth Angle
Here is what keeps my attention. A capacity price is set in an auction years before it reaches a kitchen table. The number on Ray’s June bill was decided in a room he has never heard of, long before he opened the envelope.
Two things can be true. The distribution grid is old and needs the money. The households paying first did not create the load that made it urgent. Both of those sit on the same line item.
I photograph one bill each June and keep the file. Not for nostalgia. It is the only way to watch the per unit price and the fixed charges move apart. The total hides which one did the work.
A fixed rate contract is the other road. It locks the supply half and leaves delivery free to climb, so it buys you calm on part of the bill. Read the end date before you sign anything.
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☕ Key Insight:
Shopping your supplier works on the half of the bill that moved least. The half that moved most answers to a regulator. The lever there is using fewer units at the hours that cost the most.
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Coffee Break Move
If you are comfortable: Pull this June’s bill and last June’s. Compare three things separately: kilowatt hours used, the per unit price, and the fixed and delivery charges. If you can shop supply where you live, check what your current contract ends at before you renew.
If you are stretched: Call the utility and ask two questions. What is the budget billing plan, and what arrearage or assistance programs exist on this account. Both are standard, both are underused, and neither shows up on the bill itself.
Ray put both bills back in the shoebox. The lid closed the same way it always does. What changed is that he now knows which half of the number to argue with.
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