ELECTRICITY AFFORDABILITY TOOLKIT
State policies to lower electricity bills
INTRODUCTION
Electricity costs are rising, driven by factors like load growth, extreme weather, and aging grid infrastructure. Trends like these are putting increased pressure on households across the country, especially those with low incomes or living in older or inefficient housing.
Fortunately, state policymakers have many tools at their disposal to respond. This resource lists more than two dozen of those tools to help legislators, staff, and advocates identify and advance effective electricity affordability solutions. It provides a curated set of actionable, state-level policies with real-world examples and options to filter policies to align with state context, interests, and goals.
WHAT THE TOOLKIT CONTAINS
Overview of policy themes
Policies are grouped into three themes:
COST CONTROL
Avoiding unnecessary cost growth through changes to utility, market, and customer incentives, seeking cost savings and cost efficiencies
COST DISTRIBUTION
Allocating costs across the system and seeking alternative sources to pay for those costs
CUSTOMER AGENCY
Providing customers with choice, control, access, and predictability to manage their bills
Safeguards
Across those three themes, some policies are also categorized as safeguards, which ensure low- to moderate-income customers are protected from disproportionate system costs.
Filtering Options
Each policy can be filtered by:
- Policy theme (cost control, cost distribution, customer agency)
- Safeguard (whether the policy focuses specifically on vulnerable customers)
- Impact time horizon (short-, medium-, long-term)
- Target cost drivers (aging grid infrastructure, fuel price volatility, extreme weather and wildfires, load growth, misaligned utility incentives)
Each policy entry includes context for the policy and the mechanisms by which it addresses affordability, including design considerations and real-world examples.
DRIVING IMPACT
Policymakers can use this toolkit as part of a process for identifying solutions and then designing and advancing legislation. The toolkit highlights legislative actions while noting the roles of regulators, state administrations, and regional transmission organizations (RTOs) in shaping and implementing policy to drive impact.
This toolkit is a practical resource for advancing long-term affordability in the electricity sector. Click the Policies tab to begin exploring high-impact options and focusing your policy efforts.
Contributors
Key authors: Jake Glassman, Matthew Land, Camellia Moors, and Wendy Jaglom-Kurtz
Additional key contributors: Steve Abbott, Stephanie Bieler, Kevin Brehm, Jesse Cohen, Jacob Corvidae, Joe Dammel, Joseph Daniel, Tyler Fitch, Christian Fong, Rachel Gold, Cara Goldenberg, Mike Henchen, Jacob Le Mueller, Whitney Mann, Russell Mendell, Carina Rosenbach, Amar Shah, Lauren Shwisberg, Katerina Stephan, Jeff Sward, Alex Walmsley, and Gennelle Wilson
Contact
Have questions or suggestions? Reach out to states@rmi.org.