Affordability Hub

Energy costs are straining household budgets nationwide. RMI’s Affordability Hub has the resources that leaders need to improve energy affordability and move decisively to end energy poverty.

Dive right in and go straight to all affordability resources

Energy affordability is a top concern for households across the United States, with a recent survey finding that over one-third of households reduced or went without basic necessities like food or medicine to pay an energy bill during the last year. The costs of electricity, heating fuels, and transportation fuels — along with the volatile and unpredictable nature of many of these costs — are straining budgets, especially for low- and moderate-income households that already spend a disproportionate share of their income on energy.

Fortunately, a variety of solutions can improve energy affordability. This hub brings together resources from RMI and other organizations that can help decision-makers understand the drivers of the affordability challenge and the tools available to address it across the electricity, buildings, and transportation sectors.

For the average American household, a little over half of energy expenditures go to gasoline, about a third to electricity, and the remainder to home heating fuels. Energy costs within those categories are shaped by multiple factors, including utility investments, fuel price volatility, inflation, housing and transportation patterns that lock in energy use, and the availability of cost-saving incentives and financing options. Understanding these drivers helps identify where interventions can be most effective.

RMI's Affordability Hub can be filtered by characteristics like sector, solution, and decision-maker to help users quickly find insights relevant to them.

A framework for solutions

Addressing residential energy affordability requires a portfolio of solutions that promote cost control, cost distribution, and customer agency:

Cost control: Avoiding unnecessary system cost growth through cost savings and cost efficiencies
Cost distribution: Allocating costs appropriately across the system and seeking alternative sources to pay for those costs
Customer agency: Providing households with choice, control, access, and predictability to manage their energy costs

Across these three solution sets, safeguards protect low- to moderate-income households from undue energy burden.

The hub allows users to develop effective strategies by organizing resources according to this solution framework.

Looking for more?

Explore other RMI resource hubs on related topics:

Featured Resources

Discover key resources that offer valuable insights and practical guidance for energy decision-makers.

Affordability 101: Can We Cut American Energy Bills in Half?

As people throughout the United States worry about the cost of energy, it’s time to solve the problem.

How to Leverage Cost Allocation to Enable Rapid, Affordable, and Equitable Electrification

Regulators can design fair, forward-looking cost allocation to fund proactive grid upgrades and accelerate equitable electrification.

Electricity Affordability Toolkit

This toolkit offers more than two dozen resources to help legislators, staff, and advocates identify and advance effective electricity affordability solutions.

It’s Time to Stop Overcharging Heat Pump Customers. Electrified Heating Rates Can Help.

This report outlines 10 key strategies to support building decarbonization. It is accompanied by a resource library that shares resources for regulators from commissions across the U.S., nonprofits, and media that expand on the themes and strategies introduced in our report.

Reducing Costs, Commutes,and Climate Pollution: State Solutions for Better Transportation

A report on how state and local governments can reduce costs, commutes, and climate pollution by prioritizing investments in clean vehicles, transit, and multi-modal transportation systems

Disconnections Handbook

A report detailing US utility disconnections and outlining reform options for public utility commissions to protect households and reduce shutoffs.

Cutting These Subsidies Could Save States Millions of Dollars

Eight states are starting to phase out gas line extension allowances, saving up to $750 million in utility bills annually.

Ahead of the Curve

RMI report shows how proactive grid investments can cut costs, boost reliability, and prepare utilities for rising EV charging demand.

A Strategic Framework for Utility Cost Control

Sixteen regulatory levers to help regulators, consumer advocates, and other stakeholders support utility cost-efficiency while meeting future energy demands.

We Can End Energy Poverty in the Electric Sector: Here’s How

RMI's Energy Poverty Policy Simulator can help lawmakers, regulators, and energy sector stakeholders chart a path to end energy poverty.

Lower Bills, Cleaner Air: Heat Pump Benefits for Homes Relying on Delivered Fuels

Four reasons why it makes sense for homes still heating with oil or propane to switch to heat pumps and how policymakers can help make it happen.

Clean Energy Isn’t Driving Power Price Spikes

An analysis debunking claims that clean energy causes rising electricity prices, showing fossil fuel volatility and wildfire costs as primary drivers, while renewables help maintain affordability.

Service Line NPAs: Unlocking Savings and Driving Electrification

A service line non-pipeline alternative program can reduce utility costs, support electrification, and give customers more choice in their energy future.

Strategies for Encouraging Good Fuel-Cost Management

A handbook for utility regulators that details strategies for controlling the cost of fuel.

How Low-Income Customer Programs Lower Energy Costs for Everyone

Protecting vulnerable utility customers through proven programs reduces energy bill debt and reduces system-wide costs.

Fixing Multiyear Rate Plans

This report by RMI and Synapse Energy Economics helps utility stakeholders design multiyear rate plans to ensure they support cost containment.

Large Energy Users Want Power. Here’s How to Protect Other Ratepayers from the Costs.

Designing large load tariffs with strong safeguards can reduce the risk of cost shifting, but adoption of them varies.

US Governors Are Leading Efforts to Tackle the Cost of Electricity

As electricity prices rise, we offer recommendations for governors seeking to provide near-term relief for customers and lower system costs in the long run.

Decision-Maker Spotlight

Improving affordability requires coordinated action across state and local governments, regulators, utilities, and businesses. Legislatures and public utility commissions develop and implement policies and rate structures; utilities manage investments and customer programs; and businesses provide and pursue solutions. This section allows users to filter resources by decision-maker type to make it easy to find the affordability resources most appropriate for them.

Businesses

Local Governments

RTOs / ISOs

State Administrations

State Legislatures

State Regulators

Utilities

Tools and Data

Explore foundational data resources and tools below that help advance energy affordability solutions.

Green Upgrade Calculator

This sophisticated, user-friendly calculator enables energy professionals – contractors, advisors, and analysts – to assess the economic and environmental impacts of green home and transportation upgrades.

Smarter MODES Calculator: Smarter Mobility Options for Decarbonization, Equity, and Safety

RMI’s Smarter MODES Calculator quantifies the state-by-state economic, safety, climate, and air quality benefits of strategies to reduce vehicle miles traveled that expand transportation options and complement vehicle electrification.

Energy Poverty Policy Simulator

EPPS is a tool designed to estimate the costs and bill impacts of a suite of energy poverty policies that states can leverage to tackle the most critical harms of the affordability crisis.

The Energy Wallet

A report on total direct energy expenditures by households and how it evolves over time.

The Economics of Electrifying Buildings

We have the opportunity to meet nearly all our buildings’ energy needs with electricity from an increasingly low-carbon electric grid, eliminating direct fossil fuel use in buildings.

E-Bike Environment and Economics Impact Assessment Calculator

RMI’s Assessment Calculator for Cities simplifies the process of assessing the impact of mode-shift from electric bikes (e-bikes) for policymakers, transportation officials, advocates, and other interested stakeholders.

PIMs Database

The PIMs Database is the most comprehensive index of emergent performance incentive mechanisms in the United States. These regulatory tools are used to incentivize desired outcomes from utilities across the United States, and are part of the toolkit for Performance Based Regulation.

Economic Dispatch Dashboard

RMI’s Economic Dispatch Dashboard helps utility industry policymakers and stakeholders track uneconomic operation of coal plants and impacts on affordability and emissions.

Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) Tool

An interactive platform that helps users make data-driven decisions on energy goals and program planning by improving their understanding of low-income and moderate-income household energy characteristics.

Energy Burden Research

A hub compiling ACEEE's research on energy burdens.

Energy Justice Lab

A hub for research from Indiana University on the long-term, persistent challenges of energy justice, as well as the short-term, acute challenges.

Docket Opportunity Tracker

The Docket Opportunity Tracker supports stakeholders as they navigate utility dockets in state regulatory proceedings. It helps these stakeholders easily plan when regulatory proceedings will occur based on adjustable geographic, utility, and timeframe parameters so that they can better allocate resources and prioritize their work.

Utility Transition Hub – Customers & Community

The Utility Transition Hub™ Portal is an interactive data portal that allows users to track, quantify, and understand the less visible forces—investments, operations, policies, and regulations—driving future outcomes in the electricity sector.

2024 | Report

Five key elements to craft financing solutions to scale home energy upgrades.

Buildings

2023 | 101

Geothermal heat pumps are a time-tested solution with untapped potential.