Many of them are crooks. Duke energy here in Florida are absolute crooks and absolute monopoly and government continues to approve rate hikes. Temperature outside change 8 degrees from previous month, NOTHING in house changed r/t usage- we even turn off cable box when not in use to save $ on electricity. Yet our bill increased 100$!! I firmly believe their plan is to punish anyone who doesn’t buy into the green agenda and get solar. We bought a canopy because stupid builder put A/C unit on sunny side and there’s no shade. Hopefully shading with canopy will help 🤞
I don't know the details about Duke energy in Florida. But I can tell you with Alabama Power at least part of the blame is the federal government. Obama's EPA forced AP to shut down a coal plant and replace it with a "clean burning natural gas" fueled plant. That cost over a beeeelllllyuuuun dollars (typed in my best Trump voice) that they had to pass onto us customers. Then Brandon issued EO's making it harder to drill for natural gas and oil, which made the cost of NG go up. In our power bills there's a rider per kWh specifically to pay for AP's fuel costs (coal, natural gas, uranium). So now that our power bills are more joined to the hip with NG than ever before (thanks to Obama), Brandon's EO made our power bills go up even more.
Bull crap like that is why I had 10kW of solar installed in the 4th month Brandon was in the WH. I studied the real world results for a year, liked it, and increased it to 20kW last year. It shouldn't be like this where we're better off producing our own energy. I can't do it as efficiently with solar as well as a power company can do it with coal if the federal government would let them (partly because coal is better than solar, and partly because of Economies of Scale makes it easier for the utility to get more kWh per dollar than me doing it for just my home).
Except that at least for now the Dims haven't figured out how to regulate the sun that hits our property. I know a lot of FReepers hate solar. But decentralized solar (solar for an individual or family, not for the grid) gives us some cushion against the Dims' stupid war on energy.