Alaskans are bracing for a painful new reality: even higher energy bills. The state has long relied on locally produced natural gas for home heating and electricity, but supplies are dwindling, and it will be a few years before imported gas reaches the region. 

According to the Alaska Beacon, utilities say imported liquefied natural gas — or LNG — is still a few years away. Yet, contracts are already being repriced upward as companies try to secure enough fuel to keep power flowing.

One of the clearest examples is in the Matanuska-Susitna region, where Hilcorp, Alaska's leading local gas producer, planned to charge Matanuska Electric Association — or MEA — 14% more as of April, increasing the rate from $7.89 to $9 per thousand cubic feet. Further increases are set to lift that price to $11.75 by 2028 — 49% above the level in early 2026.

MEA said the revised deal secures one more year of guaranteed gas supply and helps the utility avoid a costlier backup option: making electricity with diesel.

And it does not mean customer bills will rise by 49%, as fuel accounts for only part of a utility's costs. Still, the Beacon reported that MEA told regulators that members' electric bills are projected to rise about 5% a year, adding more than $20 to most consumers' bills by 2028.

In Fairbanks, lower-cost gas-fired electricity once brought in from farther south is no longer available, so the local utility has relied more on diesel generation. Home electricity rates are up nearly 50% from a 2020 low and now sit at roughly twice the national average.

Other states, such as Maine, have also seen higher electricity bills due to rising natural gas prices. 

Heating customers may not be spared either. 

Enstar, the main heating utility for urban Alaska, said buying a new storage reservoir could raise customer bills by about $12 a month. The company said the project would help it handle tightening supplies in the near term and later hold imported LNG when those shipments begin, according to the Beacon.

The broader outlook is troubling for both wallets and the climate. Alaska's utilities remain deeply dependent on nonrenewable energy sources, and University of Alaska Fairbanks energy historian Phil Wight said years of missed chances to coordinate power generation, improve efficiency, and build large renewable projects have left the region exposed.

While some renewable projects are in place, such as Renewable IPP — which now operates the state's largest solar farm, powering 1,400 homes with clean energy — they face steep challenges. 

With no major projects expected to be built before federal tax credits expire — and the state still getting about 80% of its power from nonrenewable sources — residents may face both higher energy costs and a longer reliance on high-polluting fuels such as diesel.

"We're really seeing this as a gradual approach to the unfortunate increase in what Alaskans may see in fuel costs," MEA's Kim Henkel said, according to the Beacon.

Enstar President John Sims was even more blunt, telling the local publication that it's "the start of an economy that just doesn't work any more."

Historian Wight gave a perhaps headier, more zoomed-out description.

"We have these systemic structures that make it hard for us to really get out of this paradigm," Wight said. "We're going to be in this pit for a while."

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