New York households are paying the third-highest residential electricity prices in the United States.
This is according to a new energy bulletin from the conservative-leaning Empire Center for Public Policy.
“This is a really disturbing trend we’ve been observing in 2026 and even before 2026,” said Zilvinas Silenas, president of the Empire Center. “I think it is no coincidence that California and New York, the two states with the most aggressive climate policies, have very high prices.”
According to the bulletin, the Empire Center found New York’s electricity price is $29.93 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) which it says is 62.3% above the U.S. average.
The center says prices increased 1.6% from April and were 12.1% higher than a year earlier in the month of May.
“The big problem that not a lot of people like to talk about is that New York is shutting down power plants, not building new ones,” said Silenas. “Meanwhile, we’re running on increasingly old electricity plants and old machinery.”
In the wake of this bulletin, a spokesperson for the governor’s office told Spectrum News 1:
“Actions taken by Republicans in Washington have sent energy prices soaring. The War in Iran has jacked up the price of fossil fuels, tariffs have inflated the cost of materials up and down the supply chain, and the war on renewable energy has taken needed sources of power off the table. That’s why the Governor included a Ratepayer Protection Plan and energy rebate checks in her recent state budget and why she is taking an all-of-the-above approach to increase energy supply and bring down costs to offer relief for hard-working New Yorkers.”
As the energy conversation centers on infrastructure and ways in which ratepayers can save money, there is an emerging trend in the energy industry called bidirectional vehicle charging.
Mike Calise, the CEO of Tellus Power, which builds the infrastructure for this, explained how it works.
“With bidirectional technology, that’s where it gets very interesting for the grid because not only do we charge up that battery one way, we can take the stored energy in that battery and push it back upstream in a bidirectional way that the grid can use to offset some of these events.”
The idea is that in the future, bidirectional vehicle charging could be a way for some ratepayers with the proper infrastructure to save on their bills by selling power back to power companies who have receiving technology.
National Grid tells Spectrum News 1, it’s not aware of any active projects through its New York electric vehicle programs, although the technology remains a promising future opportunity.
National Grid also says “school district and fleet operators have explored bidirectional charging options, but adoption has been limited due to the complexity in integrating these systems with existing electric infrastructure.”