An influx of natural disasters and rising storm-recovery costs means Americans will have to pay pricier utility bills for decades

A bent stop sign in a storm damaged neighborhood after Hurricane Ida on September 4, 2021 in Grand Isle, Louisiana. Sean Rayford/Getty Images

• Utility bills are costing Americans more than ever, thanks to natural disasters rocking power grids.
• Companies have taken on billions in debt to strengthen their grids against storms, according to WSJ.
• One in six US households are behind on their utility bills, the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association reported.

Americans will have to pay the price for an uptick in damaging storms in the form of higher utilities bills for up to 30 years.

Utility companies have invested heavily into strengthening their power grids in response to an influx of natural disasters, but those investments mean customers are the ones who will have to pay for the multibillion-dollar upgrades in their energy bills, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Thanks to a spate of hurricanes and winter freezes over the past year, utility providers have taken on about $12.4 billion in debt and expect the amount to increase, advisory firm Saber Partners LLC told the Journal.

Electricity and natural gas expenses from Winter Storm Uri — which wreaked havoc on the state of Texas in 2021, leaving millions without power and water for upwards of a week — alone could reach $13 billion, an expert said.

"Different customer groups are going to be paying over time. It may be different generations," Saber Partners CEO, Joseph Fichera, told WSJ.

Residents of New York, Texas, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma are taking on the highest percent of securitization charges on their monthly bills, according to data from Moody's Investors Service.

"It really is about finding the fairest way to cover the costs associated with putting the system back together," Phillip May, CEO of Entergy Louisiana, told WSJ.

According to a November release from the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, one in six households in the US are behind on their utility bills. The families owe a total of $16.1 billion as of August 2022, an $8 billion increase from December 2019.