The nation’s largest electric providers outlined plans last week to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bolster the grid, while pledging to prioritize affordability.
Consumer advocates aren’t buying it.
“Utilities can’t spend that much money without substantial increases to consumers,” said David Springe, executive director of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates.
During conference calls with Wall Street analysts last week, the CEOs of DTE Energy, Entergy, Southern Co. and other major utilities each detailed tens of billions of dollars in capital spending over the next few years. The investments aim to harden local power grids against extreme weather, as well as add generating capacity — some of it to serve power-hungry data centers.
