In Tennessee, Climbing Utility Rates and More Than 140,000 Household Cut-Offs in 2023

MEMPHIS, Tenn.—Cat Grisanti’s shift at Create A Cig, a vape store in Memphis, was stressful enough even before she received an alert on her phone in March. It said she owed Memphis Light, Gas and Water $800.

The 39-year-old store manager immediately went into the bathroom to scream. She had already used her income tax return to pay a $1,400 utility bill in February and didn’t know how she would now come up with the money to pay March’s bill.

Grisanti said she makes $200 over the limit to qualify for any government assistance, thanks to a bonus she receives whenever she meets a goal at work. One of her employees created a GoFundMe to cover the $800 bill, but the donations weren’t enough. So Grisanti used the money she had set aside to buy groceries to cover the remaining balance and turned to Facebook groups to feed her 11-year-old daughter.

She had depended on family and friends to help pay her utility bills in the past. Once in 2023, her lights would have been cut off for more than three days if it wasn’t for her mother’s support.

“I make more money now than I’ve made in the last 10 years, and I’ve never been more broke in my life,” she said. 

She’s hardly alone in struggling to pay her utility bills. More Americans are at risk of experiencing an energy shut-off, and some households are also juggling payments on both energy and water bills. 

In the South, one out of three residents can’t afford their energy bill each month, according to the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance, an environmental advocacy nonprofit. One reason for the burden is the region’s aging housing stock. Nearly 57 percent of homes were built before the first building energy codes, according to the environmental advocacy nonprofit. 

Memphis has historically maintained one of the highest energy burdens in the nation, with residents paying more of their income on energy than the national average. 

Energy researchers say the U.S. is in the “midst of a disconnection crisis” as electric rates have climbed after the end of the COVID-19 utility shut-off moratoriums in 2021. Researchers called on states to expand their disconnection policies and the federal government to collect disconnection data. 

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have enacted legislation pausing the disconnections of utilities for non-payment during the summer months as the country experiences increased heat waves driven in part by climate change. However, weather-based disconnection laws do not exist in Tennessee. The state is among the few without laws suspending disconnections during cold snaps or heat waves, leaving it up to the utility boards to decide when to halt disconnections during extreme temperatures. Two other states in the South—Florida and Kentucky— lack such protections. 

Customers who receive energy from a municipal utility or an electric cooperative are often not covered by such policies, either. Only eight states—Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, West Virginia, Colorado, Washington and Rhode Island—extend protections to residents who receive power from municipal utilities or electric cooperatives, according to the Energy Justice Lab.

An Inside Climate News analysis of disconnection policies for four utility companies in Tennessee’s largest three metropolitan areas found that only Memphis Light, Gas and Water issues an annual moratorium for disconnections during cold snaps. It’s also the only utility company with non-payment disconnection policies for seniors and residents with disabilities, Inside Climate News found. However, none of the municipal utility companies in Memphis, Knoxville or Nashville stop suspending disconnections moratoriums during the summer.

Last year, 140,851 households in Tennessee experienced a utility disconnection, according to data Inside Climate News obtained through public records requests from Nashville Electric Service, the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County Water Services, Knoxville Utilities Board and Memphis Light, Gas and Water. Some households experienced shut-offs up to five times. The companies disconnected services more in the summer than in the winter.

Even more households received disconnection cut-off notices. In Davidson County, where Inside Climate News received data on cut-off notices, 141,164 metro Nashville households in 2023 received disconnection notices from Nashville Electric Service, which serves 460,000 customers. Zip codes with high energy disconnections also experienced high water disconnections in Davidson County, where two municipal companies provide energy and water.

“In most cases, people who experience disconnections are already suffering or experiencing material hardship. And cutting off their service to essential things like energy and water doesn’t improve the situation—it only makes matters worse,” said David Konisky, co-director of the Energy Justice Lab at Indiana University.  

A Memphis Story 

Grisanti lives in Orange Mound, one of Memphis’ oldest neighborhoods, which was built on a former slave plantation. Thirty-two percent of its residents live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The neighborhood contains one of the highest concentrations of Black households, and is saturated with payday lenders, where at one point people also paid their bills from the city’s utility company.

Memphis Light, Gas and Water, the nation’s largest three-service municipal utility, issued 7,290 disconnections for 3,034 households in Grisanti’s 38114 Zip Code last year, according to data Inside Climate News obtained through a public records request. 

The utility issued 177,887 disconnections for 75,801 households throughout Memphis and Shelby County in 2023. 

“I literally feel like I’m going to throw up every time I get an email that says your bill is ready.” 

— Cat Grisanti

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found in 2016 that Memphis residents pay more of their income on energy bills than any other major metropolitan area in the country. The average household pays 6.2 percent of its income on energy bills each year, and that percentage of income soars for low-income households, the report added. The Southeast—which includes Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee—has the highest percentage of low-income households with high energy burdens compared to other regions, according to an American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy 2020 report. 

Grisanti said she never had a utility bill over $300 before moving to Orange Mound, where her house has a smart meter, which tracks utility usage in real time. The city rolled out its Smart Meter program in 2013 to modernize its electricity grid, but faulty meters have caused delays and raised bills to as high as $66,000 for a single household.

Grisanti called the power company when she received the $1,400 utility bill and said officials told her the meter wasn’t working and it would be fixed. She received a cut-off notice and said officials told her she’d have to pay the bill. Then, she received $800 bills for the next two months.

“I literally feel like I’m going to throw up every time I get an email that says your bill is ready,” Grisanti said. 

The utility company experienced numerous gas and water meter malfunctions in 2023. Nearly 38,000 customers experienced higher bills and delays when 8 percent of the meters failed due to a faulty wriggler on the gas meters and a frozen LCD screen on the water meters, News Action 5 reported. 

Some of those customers could have received cut-off notices, but their service was not disrupted, Memphis Light, Gas and Water wrote in an email to Inside Climate News.

Power Companies Spike Rates

Smart meter failures aren’t Grisanti’s only concern. She makes $14.75 an hour, and power companies have announced electricity rate hikes three times. 

The Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned utility corporation that distributes power to municipal utility companies throughout the state and six others, increased electric rates twice since the pandemic. 

Rates rose 4.5 percent in 2023 and 5.25 percent in 2024—collectively adding $7.95 to the average electric bill. The percentages are passed through to local municipal power companies’ customers and can vary throughout the state.  

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) officials said the rate increases are needed to cope with inflation, higher interest rates and to meet a demand in the region that could double by 2050. Documents show that natural gas is a key investment. 

The increases raised concerns among Memphis City Council members, who in 2023 approved a 12 percent increase in electric rates over three years to address aging infrastructure.  

“Are y’all giving them any type of pushback for our customers?” council member Yolanda Cooper-Sutton asked the CEO of Memphis Light, Water and Gas during a committee meeting. 

Tennessee Valley Authority’s contract allows it to raise rates without negotiating with local power companies if the rates are less than 10 percent in any five-year fiscal period. 

“We know this is a kitchen table issue for many families across our region. At TVA, we don’t like price increases any more than you do, and that’s why we continually work to reduce expenses by hundreds of millions of dollars each year,” Jeff Lyash, Tennessee Valley Authority CEO, said in a news release. “We have done everything possible to absorb costs as we invest in the reliability of our existing plants, construct new generation to keep up with growth and maximize solar to produce more carbon-free energy.”

The Tennessee Valley Authority has kept rates lower than 75 percent of the top 100 U.S. utilities despite 2023’s increase, according to Lyash.

Still, residents struggle to pay their bills. Twenty-three percent of Tennessee households reported in September that they couldn’t pay an energy bill, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The rate increases pose a significant challenge for seniors and residents with disabilities on fixed incomes.

“Where are they supposed to come up with the funds, per se, if there is not some kind of payment plan or planning in place?” Dana Brooks, executive director of the Shelby County Community Services agency, said. 

Brooks said she’s seen people lining up outside the office at 4 a.m. for utility assistance. During the first week of October, she said the agency received about 785 applications daily, with balances ranging from $140 to $5,000. 

The Metropolitan Action Commission of Nashville and Davidson County saw a 10 percent uptick in residents requesting utility assistance in the fall of 2023, according to Lisa McCrady Beverly, the social services agency’s director of communications. 

“It’s a tribute to the rise in rates,” McCrady Beverly said. “It’s also attributed to the challenge of finding affordable housing in our county, which has a ripple effect on someone who is already income sensitive.”

Disconnection Crisis 

Nearly 3.8 million households nationwide are expected to have experienced a utility shut-off by the end of 2024, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, a federal entity that provides grants for utility assistance. 

The country is in the “midst of a disconnection crisis,” according to the Energy Justice Lab at Indiana University.

“Paying for energy is not like paying for other basic needs, where you can choose to buy cheaper groceries or cheaper clothing.”

— Mark Wolfe, National Energy Assistance Directors Association

More Americans risk losing utilities for non-payment each year, especially during the summer, and shut-offs occur month after month for low-income residents, Energy Justice Lab researchers wrote. 

Nearly 3 million households experienced utility disconnections in 2022, according to the researchers, adding that the number is an undercount due to limited reporting requirements throughout the U.S.

A combination of high energy costs, high temperatures and reduced federal funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program is attributed to the crisis, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. 

“Paying for energy is not like paying for other basic needs, where you can choose to buy cheaper groceries or cheaper clothing,” Mark Wolfe, the association’s executive director, said in a news release. “Whether you’re rich or poor, you’re forced to buy the same gas or electricity. You have no control over the price and little control over the bill.”

Disconnection Legislation Dies in Southern States

The majority of states prohibit energy shut-offs during cold snaps, but only 22 states have shut-off laws for both cold and hot weather. Tennessee is one of eight states without any weather-based disconnection laws. These states include Alaska, Hawaii, Utah, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kentucky and Florida, according to the Energy Justice Lab’s Utility Disconnection dashboard. 

Tennessee state lawmakers tried to change that in 2023 with bills prohibiting energy companies from suspending service during a state of emergency due to extreme weather or when temperatures reach levels that would threaten residents’ health and safety.

Sen. Heidi Campbell and Rep. John Clemmons, both Nashville Democrats, introduced the bills after the Tennessee Valley Authority implemented rolling blackouts during a winter storm with the lowest temperatures Nashville had seen since 1996. They thought the timing would get the bills over the finish line—but both bills died in committees.

In neighboring Kentucky, disconnection policy bills have also met similar fates. The Kentucky Public Service Commission orders the Kentucky Power Company, which serves 20 counties in Eastern Kentucky, to pause disconnects when temperatures reach 32 or 95 degrees. But bills that would order other utility companies to suspend disconnections during cold snaps or heat waves have died. 

The legislation does not say the individual household does not have to pay its bill, said Tony Curtis, executive director of the Metropolitan Housing Coalition in Louisville. 

“It just says, ‘Hey, here’s a little bit of humanity.’ We’re going to keep people safe and healthy in their homes during extreme weather conditions, and then we’ll worry about collecting the bill at a later date,” Curtis added. 

As extreme weather intensifies, Congress hasn’t enacted a federal law pausing disconnections for nonpayment. Instead, it encourages states through the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act to not disconnect during any period when the termination of service would endanger an electric customer‘s health.

U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Washington) tried to amend the act in 2022 and again in 2024 to encourage electric services to consider disconnection prohibitions during extreme hot or cold weather, but failed. 

Limited Data Creates Challenges

One reason why the Kentucky bills died is due to a lack of data on how residents are affected by disconnections, Curtis said. 

Comprehensive national data on utility shut-offs does not exist, which results in a lack of transparency in disconnection procedures and creates uncertainty in how racial and ethnic groups are affected, according to a 2023 Congressional Research Service report on electric disconnections. 

Energy researchers found that 30 states and the District of Columbia required utility companies in 2022 to disclose how many households experienced disconnections, according to a Center for Biological Diversity report co-authored with the Energy and Policy Institute and Bailout Watch. 

However, public utilities and cooperatives, which serve more than 20 percent of U.S. households, often aren’t covered by state disconnection reporting regulations, according to the Energy Justice Lab. 

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is in the process of developing a national database on disconnections from electric and natural gas providers.

Water affordability is also a growing concern, and researchers have called on the federal government to track water disconnections. Only a few states require water utilities to report disconnections, according to a Pacific Institute issue brief on water and the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Energy Burden Residents Also Face Water Insecurity 

Chante Benford has struggled with paying her water bill for a few years. She said the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County Water Services cut her water off in October because she couldn’t pay a $500 bill. The water company shut off Benford’s water three times in 2023, according to data Inside Climate News obtained through a public records request.

Once, she stayed at a family member’s house for a few days until she could use her income tax refund to pay $1,634 to reconnect her water, she said. 

The 42-year-old lives in zip code 37207, a part of Davidson County where 22 percent of residents live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  Zip code 37207—which stretches from North to East Nashville—had the county’s second-highest water disconnections per zip code in 2023, according to data Inside Climate News obtained. 

Data shows 805 households had their water shut off; some experienced shut-offs up to five times. 

Nearly one in 10 U.S. households faces water affordability concerns, with low-income households spending 6.8 percent of their annual income on water and sewer services, according to a water affordability study published in the Advancing Earth and Space Sciences journal in 2022.  

Researchers found that water affordability concerns were pervasive in the Southeast.

“The water affordability problem really reflects income inequality, as opposed to extreme prices for water,” Casey Wichman, associate professor and co-author of the study, said. 

Benford has also struggled with paying her electricity bill from Nashville Electric Services. She said the power company shut off her electricity for one day in February. 

Data shows Nashville Electric Service issued 8,404 disconnections for 3,764 households in Benford’s zip code last year.

Benford works part-time as a phlebotomist and plans to have hip replacement surgery that will prevent her from working for about eight weeks. She doesn’t know how she’ll cover her utility bills then.

“I’m hoping and praying that my family helps me out, but they’re struggling too,” she said.