SOUTH COVENTRY — The cost of electricity in Pennsylvania has risen nearly 22 percent in just one year, making it the second-highest increase in the country.

Nationwide, the cost of electricity is up 11.4 percent over the same period. These increases in electric bills come at a time when electricity use is down nearly 5 percent across the country.

About 24 percent of Pennsylvanians report being unable to pay an energy bill at least once in the past year. And 30 percent report having to cut back on food or medicine in order to pay an energy bill.

Since the war on Iran began, gas prices have spiked by more than $1 a gallon in just 60 days.

These were just some of the issues at the crossroads of energy and affordability shared Wednesday during a town hall sponsored by U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-6th Dist., and held at Owen J. Roberts High School.

Houlahan said she likes to hold town halls that focus on a single subject and Wednesday’s focus was on energy affordability.

Despite these grim statistics, Houlahan said the current administration “has dismissed affordability as a fake narrative, but it sure seems real to the people who are living it.”

“Families are paying more despite using less,” she said.

There are several factors contributing to this increase in energy costs, Houlahan said.

One of them is the so-called “big beautiful bill,” a sweeping Republican-led tax-and-spending agenda signed into law by President Trump on July 4, 2025.

That bill cut subsidies for solar and wind generating projects as well as ending tax rebates for household energy efficiency upgrades and the purchase of electric vehicles, Houlahan said. “It reduced the tools people have to reduce energy costs, making it harder and more expensive” to improve energy efficiency.

Although it did increase funding for nuclear and biofuel options, which Houlahan described as “good things” about the bill, “on the whole, this bill really did a ton of damage to the U.S.,” as well as reversing a recent trend of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Another reason for price spikes in energy is the war with Iran, which Houlahan, an Air Force veteran, described as “an unforced error.”

In February, the average price of gas was 3.10 a gallon. As of April 6, it was $4.12 per gallon.

Trump “is picking winners and losers, promoting oil and gas and undermining clean energy,” the infrastructure for which is more speedily build than for major power plants, which can take 10 years to permit and construct. Trump “is cancelling clean energy projects that were already underway and could have increased our energy supply,” she said.

And it didn’t take long for one of the things increasing energy demand to come up — data centers.

Houlahan said 101 data centers are operating in Pennsylvania, and they have increased the cost of electricity by $9.3 billion, and are responsible for 63 percent of the price hike in electricity.

The meeting then shifted to a panel discussion with three experts in different fields exploring causes and solutions.

On hand were Flora Cardoni, deputy director of Penn Environment; Tom Bonner, director of policy, advocacy and external affairs at PECO and Patrick Patterson, regional director of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s southeast regional office. They were posed questions by Rachael Griffith, the sustainability director for Chester County.

Patterson said one thing the DEP has done under Gov. Josh Shapiro is eliminate the backlog in permitting for all projects, including energy-generating projects.

Cardoni said the federal standards to improve energy efficiency on appliances have saved the average Pennsylvanian more than $6,400 over 10 years, for a total of $33.3 billion in savings. “But those standards are under attack,” she said.

Clean energy projects, like solar and wind projects, in addition to addressing “the existential crisis that is global climate change,” can also be built faster than traditional coal or gas power plants and can thus increase supply more quickly. Getting federal tax breaks and subsidies for those projects reinstated would help bring prices down, she said.

Bonner explained that there are two sides to electricity prices, the supply side and the delivery side and PECO only has control over the latter. “We have no control over the supply side” since electricity was deregulated.

PECO, which earlier this month applied to the Public Utility Commission for double digit rate hikes for both electricity and gas, “has invested heavily” in the reliability side of their business, “which has been a huge benefit.” He said PECO energy delivery is 35 percent more reliable than it was in 2010.

He also said PECO has a customer assistance program for its poorest customers, which uses $150 million to lower energy bills for “the poorest of the poor.”

“The challenge for us,” he said, “is reaching those living just above the poverty line.” PECO has $12.5 million available for that class of people but it has so far only been accessed by about 9,000 PECO customers. “We have not used up all that money.”

As for data centers, Bonner said PECO wants to be sure not to build “tens of millions of dollars” in infrastructure to serve the needs of centers that may never be built. That is why PECO requires a 10-year letter of credit from any data center customer to guarantee those revenues.

“For years, electricity usage was not growing very much, but now, all of the sudden, with data centers, it’s 4 percent a year, and suddenly all these new power plants need to be built in five years, and renewables are the quickest way we can do that. We need every tool in the toolbox to get that done.” Bonner said. “It costs billions to construct a traditional power plant and investors do not make that money back for 30 or 40 years.”

Some data centers will be required to build their own power supply. “We need to make sure data centers are not cannibalizing what’s out there for the rest of us, because that would be a nightmare for consumers.”

Asked about implementing a national moratorium on data centers, Houlahan sighed and said, “You’ve seen what Washington is like and how impossible it is to move anything of substance. We can’t even legislate stoves.”

All of which is reason for people to vote in upcoming elections, said Houlahan, who is running for reelection this year.

“We are living a shared experience like no other in our lifetimes. We see the warning signs. Costs are rising; our checks and balances are eroding; federal agencies that have served the public for decades are being hollowed out; elections and the rule of law are being questioned, and chaos is being treated as a government strategy when in reality what it is is a failure to lead,” she said.