WASHINGTON— Six of the nation’s largest utility corporations netted more than $10 billion in profits while disconnecting their customers’ power at least 662,000 times last year — including hundreds of thousands of record-heat summertime shutoffs, according to a report released today [Feb. 3, 2025] by the Center for Biological Diversity.
The report, Powerless in the United States, is the fourth in a series exploring the utility industry’s use of harmful tactics — like electricity shutoffs for falling behind on payments, rate hikes, methane gas expansions and anti-competitive practices — to maximize profits at the expense of customers and the planet.
[The Feb. 3, 2025] report focuses on the practices of six utility corporations that serve more than 200 million customers from California to the Carolinas: Georgia Power, DTE Energy, Duke Energy, Ameren Corporation, Pacific Gas & Electric and Arizona Public Service.
“Utilities are bleeding customers dry on the frontlines of climate chaos while executives double down on polluting methane gas plants and return billions to shareholders,” said report author Selah Goodson Bell, energy justice campaigner at the Center. “American families can’t afford this unreliable, fossil fuel-dependent system, but this report shows that no matter how bad it gets utility companies will prioritize profits. It’s up to state and local governments, along with right-minded regulators, to safeguard people from extreme weather and the life-threatening greed of executives and shareholders.”
From January through September 2024, the six utility companies collectively increased electricity shutoffs by nearly 21% compared to the same period in 2023. Less than 2% of the nearly $7 billion the companies spent on shareholder dividends through September could have covered the cost of preventing all 662,000-plus residential power shutoffs during the same period. Despite temperature-triggered shutoff bans in some regions, and 2024’s record-breaking heat, these utilities disconnected power more than 400,000 times during the summertime.
The report shows that climate change and inflation are stretching families’ limited dollars and driving more power disconnections. The six utility companies are making things worse by imposing crippling rate hikes — increasing customers’ rates by at least $3.5 billion between 2023 and 2027. That’s made it harder for families to afford their energy bills and avoid the loss of power, the report shows.
The utility industry’s drive to preserve and expand investments in methane gas and false climate solutions — like hydrogen, carbon capture and storage technologies, and biofuels — exposes customers to volatile fuel prices and greater rate hikes, the report found. The six for-profit utilities are planning at least 22 new methane gas expansion projects through 2033, despite the fact that fossil fuels drive the climate emergency.
Corporate utilities courting commercial data centers and AI infrastructure often use the excuse of increased energy demand to justify building more methane gas infrastructure, lucrative capital projects that return more dividends to shareholders. These decisions ignore the brittle nature of fossil fuel infrastructure, which crumbles under the climate disasters it worsens, and the disproportionate harm its toxic pollution inflicts on Black, Brown and low-income neighborhoods.
“[DTE’s] reliance on fossil fuels is a direct threat to our health… On our death certificates it won’t say DTE pollution… it will say lung disease and congestive heart failure; it will say stroke,” said Mia McPherson, a DTE customer who testified at a rate hearing last fall in Detroit, Michigan. “But the finger will never be pointed at DTE, [and] their profits will remain full while we struggle to pay our bills… We’re essentially being forced to pay more for our own demise.”
The report also spotlights the anti-competitive tactics utilities use against distributed energy resources, like rooftop and community solar, storage and electrification, which threaten the industry’s profits. These resources provide disadvantaged and energy-insecure communities with greater resilience during climate disasters, cheaper bills and new jobs. They also minimize the need for transmission lines, reducing the risk of devastating wildfires like those that wreaked havoc in the Los Angeles area.
The report outlines the many tools federal and state lawmakers and regulators have to rein in corporate profiteering and hold utilities accountable for the widespread harm they inflict. It offers a policy blueprint recommending state and local solutions to utility injustices, ranging from shutoff bans and utility debt forgiveness to distributed solar incentives and taxes on shareholder dividends.
Source: “Report: Utilities Drive Energy Unaffordability, Climate Emergency While Shareholders Rake in Billions,” Feb. 3, 2025 Center for Biological Diversity press release.
Above and corresponding, connected home-page-featured images: Tennessee Valley Authority