So-called “green” energy, such as wind and solar, represent a larger share of electricity generation in the United States than at any time in history. Also, the price consumers pay for electricity continues to rise at a significant clip.
Those two facts are closely related, although the anti-fossil fuels crowd pretends otherwise.
Because wind and solar generation are weather dependent, they do not provide a consistent supply of electricity. Therefore, states must have backup generation. That means consumers effectively pay for two systems. In contrast, prior to the green-energy boom, consumers typically paid only to maintain fossil-fuel generation that relied on coal or natural gas.
Also, wind and solar generation typically occurs in areas far from urban centers, which means power companies must pay for miles of new transmission lines to move power from the wind farm to the grid. Once again, that’s an added cost burden for consumer rates.
Some states have made things even worse by mandating that a certain share of power comes from wind or solar. To comply, producers have been forced to not only build new wind farms, but also close older coal-fired plants. That means there is less reliable, cheap energy production in the system and its replacement is more expensive and less dependable.
Despite our conservative reputation, Oklahoma is not immune to these factors. Although our state does not mandate wind-power use, wind now supplies around 41 percent of Oklahoma’s instate electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Wind power did not achieve that status because of market forces, but because of state and federal subsidies through the years. Those subsidies represent another added cost for consumers.
Increased electricity rates are not only the result of the aforementioned production issues, but also of growing demand on the consumer side, particularly as more data centers are built in Oklahoma and elsewhere. That means we have increased need for power at a time when policy has made the production of power more expensive and less reliable. It’s the worst of both worlds.
Liberals are claiming high electricity rates are caused by Republicans’ decision to cut federal wind and solar subsidies with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act this year. But that was an act of fiscal sanity. According to a recent CATO analysis, if left in place those federal energy subsidies would have cost taxpayers $4.7 trillion by 2050. Notably, the surge in electricity rates nationwide was especially rapid from 2021 to 2025, during Joe Biden’s presidency when “green power” subsidies were rampant.
Rather than return to a failed policy of greenenergy subsidies, officials need to do the opposite. The key to reducing electricity rates is to significantly increase our use of fossil fuels – oil, gas, coal – and nuclear energy, both in Oklahoma and across the nation.
Jonathan Small serves as president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (www.ocpathink.org).