Price of Fuels Has Sky-Rocketed The cost of the fuels we use to produce power has surged in recent years, as illustrated in the charts below. Since 2004, the price of coal (one of the cheapest sources of energy) has gone up by 143 percent. The price of natural gas – a fuel that plays an increasingly important role in power production – has more than doubled. Purchased power costs have gone up 130 percent. And leading the way is oil. Petroleum products used in power generation have gone up as much as 224 percent since the last year of the 20th century.
Average Monthly Residential Bill
The bill of a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month will increase by $16.61 to $107.20, or 18.3 percent. That is still about 6 percent below the national average.
