January 9, 2025· 44 min

This Is How Electricity Rates Are Actually Set

Lon Huber

Orality

Model

85%

Oral-dominant (speeches, podcasts, storytelling)

Speaker Breakdown

HostJoe Weisenthal(1,849 words)

M:29%

HostTracy Alloway(4,601 words)

M:28%

GuestLon Huber(1,503 words)

M:29%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic29%

amazing, basically, incredible

Engagement65%

you, our, your

Memory Aids100%

listen, now, so

Repetition100%

like (85x), right (73x), know (53x)

Parallelism95%

And I'm Joe Isenthal...., So I got one lower electricity..., And in case you don't know, it...

Sound Patterns100%

108 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"

Formulaic Phrases2%

i mean

Literate Indicators

Hedging6%

maybe, quite, could

Passive Voice4%

are covered, is owned, be subsidized

Abstract Nouns23%

investment, electricity, conversation

Subordination6%

however, because, although

Sentence Length27%

Avg: 11.8 words/sentence

Word Complexity49%

investment, analyze, anticipate

Academic Markers0%

Impersonal Style35%

572 personal pronouns found

Descriptive Style75%

finally, basically, actually

Description

Utilities in the US have a couple big jobs to do. On the one hand, they need to deliver affordable and reliable power to their customers. On the other hand, they also need to maintain and upgrade huge amounts of fixed infrastructure. Balancing those two jobs is getting more complicated thanks to America's aging electricity grid and the shift towards renewables. So how are big utilities squaring those two objectives? How do they decide how much money they need to fund new capital investment? How do they decide which customer pays what rate? And what role do regulators play in all these discussions? In this episode of the podcast, we speak with Lon Huber, senior vice president of pricing and customer solutions at Duke Energy, one of the largest utilities in the US. We talk about why the ramp-up in renewable energy hasn't led to lower electricity prices for everyone, why fuel is ultimately the most marginal cost of electricity generation, and how utilities are handling booming demand from data centers. Read More: AI Needs So Much Power, It's Making Yours Worse UK Set to Spend £1.8 Billion as Wind Power Overwhelms Grid Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

← What It Felt Like When Everyone Was Hope...Lots More on the Global Selloff in Gover... →