Pepco Washington DC | Arbor Rate Index

Rate forecast at a glance

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12-mo forecast

Projected change

Next reset

Confidence*

*Confidence reflects each forecast's historical accuracy over a 12-month horizon: high is under 8% off, medium 8–15%, low over 15%.

What moves your rate?

Your supply rate is really the wholesale cost of electricity showing up on your bill. A few factors move it, and lately, they've been mostly pushing up (though not everywhere). Here's the broad picture:
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Demand is rising and supply is tight: Electricity use is climbing — data centers in some regions, the electrification of cars and home heating in others — while older plants retire faster than new supply comes online. When more demand chases tighter supply, the cost of keeping enough power available rises, and your supply rate rises with it.

Wholesale power and gas prices: Most electricity is still generated from natural gas, so when gas and wholesale prices climb, your supply rate climbs too.

It's locked in by auction: Your utility buys its default supply in periodic auctions. Once a price clears, it holds until the next reset, which is why your rate jumps in steps rather than drifting.

Your residential supply rate

Source: Arbor Rate Forecast
Rebuilt from wholesale and auction data, updated monthly

Your utility's story

Pepco delivers electricity in the District and sends your bill, but the supply price on it comes from Standard Offer Service, bought ahead of time through competitive auctions. Pepco passes that price through and does not profit from it.

Washington draws its supply from the PJM regional grid, where the cost of keeping enough generation available has been rising with demand. Pepco's reset moved that cost onto your bill only modestly this cycle, but the regional pressure behind it is the same one lifting rates across the PJM footprint.

The part you can control

Supply • You can change this median*

The electricity itself, from the wholesale market. This is the part Arbor can get you a better rate plan for.

Delivery • Set by utility median*

Poles, wires, taxes, and charges to get power to your home. Set by your utility and unchangeable.

The long view

Electricity prices move with the seasons: easing in spring and fall, climbing in summer and winter. Because of seasonality, it's entirely possible your rate dips this fall. But a seasonal dip and the direction of the market are different questions, and the second one matters more. Over the next several years, in most markets, the cost of electricity looks set to keep climbing and to get less predictable as it does — demand is rising (data centers in some regions, the electrification of cars and home heating in others) while older plants retire faster than new supply comes online, and the grid costs more to keep reliable. None of these pressures are seasonal.

Our full read

So our honest read is that optimizing for the next few months of savings is usually solving the smaller problem. The bigger one is where the rising floor leaves you a few years out. It's less like timing a market, more like deciding whether to insure something, or lock a mortgage rate while you can. You're not trying to win the next quarter; you're deciding how much certainty you want against a market drifting the wrong way.

There's a real exception. if you're renting, or you don't expect to be at this address long, the next year or two is genuinely what counts for you, and going after the near-term savings is the rational move. The long game only pays if you're here for it. With Arbor, you can choose what you want to optimize for: short-term savings or long-term stability.

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Pepco rates are forecast to rise over the next year.

What moves your rate?

Your residential supply rate

Your utility's story

The part you can control

The long view