Last week, Dominion Virginia Power announced it would seek a rate increase that would boost the average bill for residential customers locally by about 18 percent, raising household electricity costs in many instances by $200 or more a year.
It was one more sign of the building pressures of inflation on the economy.
From coast to coast, electricity rates are increasing. Some Americans, concerned about possible food shortages, are stockpiling items to maintain supplies and avoid rising prices later. And energy market volatility is keeping Americans guessing about how high pump prices will go this summer. As these stories from across the country suggest, the U.S. economy is in a state of flux:
Costlier coal and natural gas, the fuels used to make 70 percent of the nation's electricity, are pushing power prices up across the United States, with increases sometimes soaring into double digits.
Because utilities typically buy most of the fuel they need under long-term arrangements, it usually takes a while for fuel-price swings to show up in electricity bills. As older contracts expire, though, utilities are facing the reality of higher costs.
Potomac Edison Co., a unit of Allegheny Energy Inc., is asking Virginia regulators for permission to raise rates by 29 percent in July. In its rate request, similar to the one filed by Dominion Virginia Power on Tuesday, the utility cited higher fuel and purchased-power costs.
In Oregon, Portland General Electric Co. is seeking a 9 percent rate increase effective in January, about a third of which is attributable to higher fuel costs.
"There's huge push-back against this rate increase," said Bob Jenks, executive director of the Citizens' Utility Board of Oregon, a group that represents consumers. The increase would come on top of a 10 percent overall increase since January 2007, and Jenks said customers fear rate "pancaking," in which small increases add up to big jumps.
Company spokesman Steve Corson said Portland General pursues "many, many small measures" to control expenses but can't do much about fuel increases.
More than 90 percent of coal burned in the United States goes for electricity production, and fuel is the industry's largest single expense. Appalachian coal, which early last week ran about $100 a ton, costs more than twice as much as it did in the first months of 2007, when it fetched about $45 a ton. Natural gas is running about 45 percent more than it did early in 2007.
Rising global demand for coal and supply disruptions in Indonesia and Australia are also contributing to price pressures.
Recent electricity auctions in Maryland and New Jersey - in which utilities buy electricity from deregulated generation companies - are exerting upward pressure on retail rates, and it's likely to continue in coming months.
In Maryland, for example, residential customers of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., a unit of Constellation Energy Group Inc., will see a 7.6 percent increase in their bills in June as a result of the latest wholesale auction conducted in April. Under the state's deregulation law, utilities sold their plants to competitive suppliers and now get power off the open market.
An average home bill will jump $137 a year, to about $1,800 annually, said the Maryland Public Service Commission. Commercial customers will be hit even harder, with price increases of 27 to 41 percent for the June-through-August period versus prices a year earlier.
In New Jersey, an energy auction in February resulted in power prices based on natural-gas costs of about $8.50 per million British thermal units, said Ralph Izzo, chief executive of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., a big utility company. But natural-gas prices projected for early next year are about 30 percent higher, or roughly $11 a unit, showing more increases could lie ahead.
The impact of higher fossil-fuel prices is felt beyond the price of electricity. It is also provoking states to explore expansion of nuclear power plants and renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, to break the grip of fossil fuels.
Last week, Ohio became the latest state to take a tentative step away from fossil fuels. Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland signed legislation requiring electric utilities to satisfy one quarter of their customers' energy needs, by 2025, through such means as renewable energy, new nuclear reactors and energy efficiency measures.
"There's definitely interplay between fuel costs going up and the willingness of states to invest in other sorts of resources," Strickland said.
This story was compiled from reports by The Wall Street Journal and by The Virginian-Pilot.