Michael Crowley runs his air conditioner nonstop on hot summer days to keep his cat, Arya, comfortable. But when the Richmond, Virginia, chef got home after work on 7 August 2022, it “felt like 100 degrees”. His power was out. He phoned his leasing office and was told his electricity bill was unpaid.
Crowley protested, saying his utilities had long been covered by his rent check. But then he learned his building’s new property manager required tenants to pay for power separately – something Crowley said was unclear. No one told him about the delinquent bill, he said.
His power remained shut off for three days as the mercury climbed to 93F (34C). The battery-operated fans he bought were no match for the oppressive heat. He filled Arya’s bowl with cool water, but she seemed “a little scared”. He, too, worried that she would get sick.
“I was freaking out,” he said. “What was I supposed to do?”
Summer electricity disconnections can be not only anxiety-producing but also dangerous. Last summer, one Arizona woman died after her power was cut over a $51 debt.
Today, Crowley’s shutoff would be illegal. Amid record heat this June, Virginia banned utility companies from disconnecting services when temperatures reach 92F or higher.
But in 27 states, utilities can still disconnect power for non-payment on the hottest days. That includes some of the hottest US states, such as Hawaii and Florida, as well as many that ban shutoffs in the extreme cold.
It’s an issue that can have deadly consequences, said Selah Goodson Bell, a campaigner at the national environmental group Center for Biological Diversity. Each year, heatwaves kill more people than any other form of extreme weather.
“Summers are getting hotter everywhere and this year will likely be the hottest year in world history,” he said. “States are starting to react and do more to protect [utility] customers. But it’s not nearly enough.”
‘Lack of data’
It’s difficult to know the national scope of the issue, as utilities in 22 states are not currently required to provide data on shutoffs. This makes it “impossible for policymakers to know which communities are affected and how”, said Goodson Bell.
Some utilities collect data on shutoffs, but only 10% publicly release that information, said Sanya Carley, who co-directs the Energy Justice Lab at Indiana University.
“The lack of data transparency is a major problem,” said Carley, who is also an energy policy expert at the University of Pennsylvania.
The available numbers show a troubling trend. According to the Energy Justice Lab’s disconnection tracker, energy utility providers in 2022 shut off power to at least 3 million customers over missed bill payments, and more than 30% of those events happened during summer months.
A separate 2023 analysis from the Center for Biological Diversity and the utility watchdog Energy and Policy Institute found that in the first 10 months of 2022, households had their electric power shut off for non-payment more than 1.5m times and their gas shut off 380,000 times, representing a 29% and 76% increase respectively over the previous year. And that’s just in the 30 states on which the researchers could obtain shutoff data.
“More people are more concerned about extreme weather dangers,” said Shelby Green, research fellow at Energy and Policy Institute who has spent years fighting utility disconnections. “But in some ways, things might be moving in the wrong direction.”
Higher bills
One likely reason for the uptick: rising costs. Monthly electricity bills were on average 2% higher each month in 2021 compared with 2022.
Costs appear to have risen even more rapidly this year. One report from the policy organizations the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (Neada) and Center for Energy Poverty and Climate (CEPC) forecast an 8% rise in summer electric bills in 2024 over 2023.
The costs of other consumer goods such as groceries have steadily risen across the same time period, meaning some customers are choosing between food and electricity. At the same time, Congress this year cut funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program by one-third, leading some states to slash utility aid to low-income households.
States tend to deplete 80% of the available program funds as bills rise in the winter cold, leaving only 20% for cooling aid in the summer. That’s especially dangerous for low-income Americans who tend to live in poorly insulated homes, which are more expensive to keep at comfortable temperatures. Robin Line, a 65-year-old resident of south central Los Angeles, knows this first-hand.
She said the windows in her low-income building are not sealed off, allowing precious cool air to seep through the cracks.
“You can see a half-inch [on the side of] the doors,” she said. “They’re not sealed, they don’t do maintenance, and it’s definitely not weatherized.”
In 2023, one in three households cut back on basic needs like medicine or food to afford at least one month’s energy bill, the Neada and CEPC report found. It’s a problem that’s familiar to Line.
“You have to shop with only money in mind,” she said. “And you can’t get all the food you want or need every week.”
Though she’s had unpaid bills, Line has “not yet” experienced a shutoff – something she attributes to her constant calls to officials: “I‘ve begged, pleaded and borrowed.”
But officials don’t make it easy to contact them or access aid, she said. “It’s really frustrating,” she said.
Existing shutoff protections
Existing summer shutoff protections are often also inadequate, environmental advocates argue.
In Arizona, the state with the highest heat casualties each year, privately owned utilities are banned from disconnecting households for overdue bills, but cooperatively and publicly owned utilities are excluded from the moratorium.
In Nevada, protections are only triggered when temperatures reach 105F. And in Florida, which has no temperature-based utility disconnection bans, the city of Tallahassee has enshrined protections, which are only triggered when temperatures top 100F for eight hours straight.
“That just means the policy has literally never been enacted,” said Green, a Tallahassee resident.
Some states and utilities suspend disconnections only when the National Weather Service issues an excessive heat warning. But research shows exposure to lower levels of heat can also be dangerous, especially over the course of many hours.
Other utilities impose their own shutoff moratoria from 15 June to 1 October. But that can leave residents vulnerable on unseasonably warm days.
“We’re finding that extreme weather is a year-round thing now,” said Carley, adding that ultimately, states should have both forms of shutoff protections.
Progress
Across the country, advocates are working to expand summer shutoff protections. In some places, they’re winning.
Maine, like Virginia, this year passed a law preventing shutoffs for non-payment during extreme heat events. Chicago this year banned shutoffs for non-payment when the National Weather Service forecasts temperatures hitting 90F, down from an earlier threshold of 95F.
Efforts to improve transparency are also under way. The federal Energy Information Administration is currently reviewing public comments on a federal utility shutoff survey. If their plan is successful, the agency will require all investor-owned gas and electric utilities in the country to report disconnection data on a monthly basis, with the rollout beginning in spring 2025.
Some advocates are calling on the agency to strengthen the survey by collecting additional information about households experiencing shutoffs, including zip codes, to see who is worst affected.
Victor Sanchez, executive director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, which in 2022 successfully pressured the Los Angeles department of water and power to prohibit disconnections for nonpayment, said that ultimately, “there needs to be more permanent solutions” to protect people from shutoffs.
“The question is, what are we doing beyond just extreme weather,” he said. “Access to water and power is not just something that should be preserved during extreme weather events. It should be preserved year-round.”