Webinar: Electricity Prices and Energy Affordability: Recent Trends and Future Drivers
March 3, 2026 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
- This event has passed.
Featured Presentations:
Factors Influencing Recent Trends in Retail Electricity Prices in the United States
Ryan Wiser, Senior Scientist in and Senior Advisor to the Energy Markets and Planning Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
The Energy Wallet: U.S. and State-Level Household Energy Expenditures, Past, Present, and Future
Geoff Blanford, Principal Technical Executive, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
About the Webinar: Across the economy, access to low-cost energy has been a competitive advantage in the United States. Household energy expenditures, including electricity and non-electric fuels, are a key metric for energy affordability. In recent years, retail electricity prices have risen rapidly in nominal terms, although real per household energy expenditures have been largely stationary over the past two decades. This webinar will summarize ongoing research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Electric Power Research Institute that seeks to better understand recent retail electricity pricing trends, drivers of changes in state-level prices, household energy expenditures, and impacts of future technological change. Research findings underscore the diverse set of electricity price determinants and potential for electrification and efficiency to drive lower overall energy expenditures, highlighting the need for continued research to inform effective policy and ensure customer affordability.
About the Speakers: Ryan Wiser is a Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Ryan helps lead a 60-person department that seeks to inform public and private decision making within the U.S. electricity sector through research on electric system planning, reliability and regulation. Ryan has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, 20 book chapters, and 400 other conference papers, magazine articles and research reports. He regularly advises public and private entities on issues related to the power sector. Ryan holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Stanford University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Geoffrey J. Blanford is a Principal Technical Executive in EPRI’s Energy Systems and Climate Analysis group, where he has worked since 2006. He is an expert on energy-economy modeling and integrated assessment and leads development of energy systems modeling at EPRI. His current research activities include energy affordability, end-use electrification, and economy-wide decarbonization policy. He was a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report and serves as co-director of the International Energy Workshop (IEW). He holds a B.A. in mathematics from Yale University, a M.S. in operations research from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in management science and engineering from Stanford University.
Registration Cost: FREE
Moderator: Trieu Mai, Visiting Fellow, ESIG
Q&A Session: We will be using the Slido platform for Q&A. Please submit your questions and follow along during the event at this link.