There’s never a good time for your electric bill to suddenly go up nearly $1,000. But this was an especially bad time for Steven Marifjeren and his two Windy City Wieners locations.
Business slows down in the summer, Marifjeren said. The Illinois State University crowd thins out at his Uptown Normal location. And many people go on vacation — even judges and lawyers, which means less foot traffic at Marifjeren’s downtown Bloomington eatery.
Then last month, Marifjeren’s electric bill shot up 35%, without much change in energy use.
“It’s just annoying. It really is,” Marifjeren said. “It hurts when it comes at a slower time, and now your overhead is getting out of whack.”
Central Illinois homeowners, renters, and business owners like Marifjeren are grappling with sharply higher electricity costs this summer. Ameren Illinois said it's a power supply problem — too much demand for too little supply, leading to a 20-fold increase in summer capacity prices.
It wasn’t a surprise. Ameren and others warned this was coming. Still doesn’t make it easy.
Windy City Wieners has tried to adapt by keeping the thermostat at 75 degrees during the day [instead of 71-72] and cranking it to 77 overnight. Marifjeren said he’s delaying equipment upgrades, like a brand-new air fryer he hasn’t hooked up yet.
But he doesn’t have a lot of levers to pull. It would take a lot of $4.20 hot dogs to make up nearly $1,000 in increased cost. And he rents his Bloomington location, which has an older air conditioning unit.
“I’ll just pay myself less,” he said with a laugh. “There’s really nothing else I’m gonna do. You know it’s coming, and you hope it’s not as bad as it’s been. And I just communicate with my staff that some things are postponed, like for example an equipment upgrade.”
Renter’s bill goes up
Marifjeren is one of two dozen Central Illinoisans who responded to WGLT’s call-out seeking those impacted by rising electric bills.
Another was Cody Kretsinger, a renter from Bloomington. He said his June bill jumped to $492, up from $225 in May and $268 this time a year ago.
“This is the first time a utility bill has actually shocked me when I opened it up,” Kretsinger said. “Every other month, there may be some increases here and there, some more utilization, but for them to double and then some was the first time where I had to sit back and think, ‘How did the bill go up quite so much?’”
Kretsinger has seen other cost-of-living increases, too, including groceries, gas prices, other household utilities and more. Kretsinger said he is grateful he can budget for these increases, but is aware that many others cannot.
Ameren says it’s not their fault — that they’re just passing along rising supply costs coming from the grid.
“We understand what customers are facing, and we are just as frustrated as customers around the energy crisis and the volatility we see,” Ameren Illinois chairman and president Lenny Singh said during a recent stop in Peoria. “Ameren does not generate power. We procure it on the market. The state procures it through the Illinois Power Agency, and we pass it on to customers at no markup.”
Kretsinger said he feels Ameren is making a “disingenuous argument” about the higher cost.
“They’re not just a passive delivery service. They are a [multi-billion dollar] company who are not struggling, and they are trying to hide behind the excuse of rate increases and are trying to pass the blame,” Kretsinger said. “It feels like they are more focused on lining their own pockets and their shareholders instead of helping their own customers.”
Kretsinger said Ameren is a “big power player” in the nation and could do more to drive down rates. Instead, he said they hide behind the notion of “just being a delivery company.”
“I hope there’s enough outrage for this for them to change their ways,” he said.
"I don’t see how this is going to work for me to even survive. I’m going to have to get a second job to pay my electric bill."Aaron Kiest, Pontiac
Customers already are changing their ways.
Aaron Kiest lives in Pontiac with his wife and 10-year-old son. They’re ComEd customers. He said their bill last month was $545 — up from $238 a year ago.
“It’s outrageous if you ask me. I don’t see how this is going to work for me to even survive. I’m going to have to get a second job to pay my electric bill,” Kiest said.
Their house is big but updated for high efficiency, including a smart thermostat they’ve already cranked up a bit. Kiest said they’re going to start drying their clothes outside to cut down on running the dryer.
Kiest works as a CNC machinist, and his employer just said there wouldn’t be overtime for awhile. So, he’s hoping to pick up some side work as a mechanic to avoid cutting into the family’s savings. His wife works part time as a beautician.
“This may force her to be full time, and then it’ll cost me even more because I’m going to have to get child care for my son,” said Kiest, adding at work that at work, he makes parts that ultimately get used in the energy industry.
“In the back of my head, I’m doing all this stuff for the energy [industry], and I can’t even get a break on my electric bill?” Kiest said.
Bad time for a heat wave
The end-of-July heat wave certainly didn’t help either.
Nick McBurney, a homeowner in Normal, said the summer heat made it dangerous to go outside and expensive to be inside — and it's eating into his strained budget.
“I noticed that there has been a 22% increase in my electricity bill this year compared to last [year], about $50 more, and we have been using the same amount of electricity,” he said.
Higher electricity prices paired with food costs and mortgage and insurance increases have left McBurney keeping a closer eye on the household budget.
“We’ve taken to going to food pantries and cutting back on doing anything outside of the house to make up for the money going out for necessary bills,” McBurney said.
He doesn't think Ameren, as an electricity delivery provider, is to blame. Instead, it is on the energy producers themselves — such as Meta signing a 20-year agreement for 1.1 gigawatts of electricity from the Clinton nuclear power plant.
“The way the system is set up for sourcing electricity, it seems to be that electricity is going to places that are not houses,” McBurney said. “They [Constellation Energy] signed the [contract] ... to keep the Clinton nuclear power plant running just to keep AI going, but that isn’t improving our prices at all.”
Some relief is on the way. For Ameren customers, the higher electric supply price [12.18 cents per kWh] is expected to only be in effect until September, with a return to more normal levels [around 8-9 cents per kWh] starting Oct. 1, the company said.
WCBU’s Joe Deacon contributed to this story.
