A new tool can now help shed light on which Missouri communities pay the most for their energy.
The Missouri Energy Burden Explorer, commissioned by Renew Missouri, a renewable energy advocacy group, uses both data from utility companies and modeling to identify average monthly energy costs. It also tracks “energy burden” — the average percentage of household income spent on utility bills.
The interactive map is broken down by the state’s census tracts. When a community is spending an average of 6% or more of household income on utility bills, it is considered to have a high energy burden. The data shows that some small cities in mid-Missouri, as well as large parts of a few rural counties, have high or very high energy burdens.
Ethan Goldman is an energy data analyst and co-founder of Power-D.City, the company that developed the map. He said a number of factors contribute to energy burden, including the quality and efficiency of homes and apartments.
Older dwellings tend to be less insulated, so heating and cooling could leak out, in addition to having older and less efficient energy systems.
“This is the benefit of using energy burden as a metric, it looks for the place where those two things are both occurring, right? You have high energy costs, due to inefficiency, and you have low income, which makes it harder to pay those energy costs,” Goldman said.
Generally, areas with many low-income residents see higher average energy burdens.
“For an individual household, 6% may not actually be a huge energy burden, depending on your income,” Goldman said. “But if the average is 6%, it means that we're seeing a range that's going to include many homes that are much higher.”
The rate at which investor-owned utilities charge customers for energy is regulated by the Missouri Public Service Commission. Multiple companies have pending requests to raise prices.
“In terms of reducing that, we can look for lower cost sources of energy,” Goldman said, noting that for many Midwestern states, wind power is a relatively cheap source of electricity.
Tori Cheatham, Renew Missouri’s St. Louis regional director, said the data is intended to give both energy providers and policymakers data about which communities are struggling.
“I would love to see some targeted outreach from utility companies to really improve their programs, especially for these customers who are really vulnerable in these high energy burden areas,” she said.
The map was created with data from multiple utility companies, including Ameren — which provides electricity for large swaths of mid-Missouri — Spire and Evergy. Cheatham said the organization plans to continue to gather information for the map from municipal utility providers and coops.
“We felt that we needed to do some research and work with utility companies to provide real data to create online resources so people (can) become advocates and be empowered by the data and what they're seeing in their own neighborhoods,” Cheatham said.
“This tool is a work in progress. It's a great baseline for people to see where their neighborhoods are at and what areas could need improvement,” she said.
Missourians can find energy bill assistance and financial support programs for those struggling at mosaves.com. Many utility companies offer payment plans for customers needing assistance.
