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- Manlobbi
Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) ❤
No. of Recommendations: 4
Con Edison is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the United States (serves NYC and I am a customer)
Proposed Rate Hikes: Con Edison has proposed significant rate increases: 11.4% for electricity and 13.3% for gas, according to multiple sources including Bloomberg AI.
Reasons for the Increases: Con Edison cites the need for increased investment in the power grid to fortify it against climate change, support New York's clean energy goals (like electrifying buildings), and upgrade infrastructure to ensure reliability.
The Role of AI: The booming demand for Artificial Intelligence, particularly from data centers that consume immense amounts of electricity, is putting a strain on the power grid and contributing to the overall increase in electricity prices.
Not mentioned is the additional effect of mining for cryptocurrency and additional electrical infrastructure for EV's.
The ConEd bill is separated into two seperate prices:
1) The cost (per kw-hr) of the electricity used
2) The cost of the infrastructure required for "delivery" of that electricity.
I have been suggesting for years that, while far from sexy, global electrical infrastructure companies have growth curves associated with this factor..
Not recommenedations, but rather a list to contemplate (in no particular order):
swx:ABBN Abb Ltd N Switzerland
swx:ACLN Accelleron Industries AG Switzerland
TEL Te Connectivity Ltd. New Switze Switzerland
PHG Koninklijke Philips N.V. Ny Reg Netherlands
SIEGY Siemens Ag Germany
SBGSY Schneider Electric Se France
EMR Emerson Electric Company USA
ETN Eaton Corporation, Plc USA
ROK Rockwell Automation, Inc. USA
HUBB Hubbell Inc USA
HON Honeywell International Inc. USA
JCI Johnson Controls International USA
APH Amphenol Corporation USA
Jeff
No. of Recommendations: 2
I'm being informed from the local electrical coop that electric rates are going up here in
Michigan as well ( not AI related). Seems like AI data centers and crypto mining are following the usual path of socialize the costs, privatize the profits. That seems to be American "Capitalism" in a nutshell.
Have watched a few utube vids of the problems these massive data centers are causing
local residents in southern States ( Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas ). Folks in Texas
are very worried about their underground aquifiers being drained because the data center
has massive cooling water needs. They drill ( or plan to drill, the residents are
fighting back ) industrial sized wells, and the residents are quite sure that will lead
to their wells going dry. In the other States, water is not quite the same issue, as
there is more of it, but home owners are dealing with lower water pressure, and are concerned
about their wells eventually going dry. Homeowners in the immediate area of the data center
say that the noise and light pollution that these DC's give off is a 24 hour a day problem.
Never ends. I think in all 3 examples, local politicians in power have been bought via
campaign donations or directly own a small slice of the data center company, so this
conflict of interest is falling in favor of the wealthy DC owners, and the local residents
are being given the usual song and dance.
And of course, all US Citizens are going to be paying more, as the infrastructure
has to be built out to cater to the owners of these data centers. Same old story.
But you probably have the right idea, might as well invest in the "picks and shovels"
companies that are going to supply the products needed for AI data centers, and crypto miners.
I'll probably look to do it via an etf.
No. of Recommendations: 0
I'm being informed from the local electrical coop that electric rates are going up here in
Michigan as well
AI is the bogeyman for everything. Some of this is due to NG rates. The public might be woefully missing how production schedules are used to keep NG prices up, and reserves are not what they were some 15 years ago. That is open to debate, and I have limited knowledge, but I have little faith that NG reserves will last forever.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Any recommendations beyond GRID? That one seems to cover many of the bases, foreign and domestic.
No. of Recommendations: 1
"Any recommendations beyond GRID?"
I haven't heard of GRID, I'll check it out.
I am pretty blah about investing in anything right now. I looked at XLU, DTCR, APH, FAST,
and of course everything seems to be at highs. It doesn't feel like risk is being
factored in to stock prices. There also seems to be a lot of overlap of companies
between the various ETF's out there, ie SPY and QQQ are not really meaningfully different.
The small and mid cap IJR, IJH seem to be picking up some momentum, I have been putting
money that has come out of matured Treasuries into them. But the momentum could stop
in a hurry if the Fed doesn't give a rate cut.
A couple of steady stocks I's like to buy are COST, FAST, and APH. But they are certainly
not a bargain at present time. So just put them on a watch list, and react when something
happens that the Market dislikes.
No. of Recommendations: 2
No. of Recommendations: 4
GRID's top holdings (as of August 15, 2025) include:
ABB Ltd: 8.48%
Eaton Corporation PLC: 7.95%
Johnson Controls International PLC Registered Shares: 7.42%
Schneider Electric SE: 7.38%
National Grid PLC: 7.23%
Prysmian SpA: 4.11%
Quanta Services Inc.: 3.95%
Hubbell Inc.: 3.77%
Aptiv PLC: 2.61%
NVIDIA Corp.: 2.41%
The expense ratio for the GRID ETF is 0.56%.
The GRID ETF was created/launched on November 16, 2009.
So, it turns out that I own 6 out of its top 10 holdings (as well as the others I mentioned - I'm surrpriseed ofr example that they don't hold Emerson)
So why not do it the easy way?
Well the chooices have been made by me over the past three decades based on personal experience at my day job (I owned engineering firms which specialized in IT and electrical infrastructure design/buiild projects. To be honest I wasn't even aware of the ETF until it was posted here. There are three advantages from my point of view doing it my way:
1) The .56% managemeent fee is a pretty high cost.
2) I have purchased some of the companys' stock on fooreign exchanges which provides a profitable use of foreign currency as a hedge against a drop in the US dollar.
3) It's more entertaining than hoping someone else is doing as good a job as I can.
Jeff
No. of Recommendations: 1
Good article on this topic today on Krugman's substack. Krugman notes that most new generation in the US is by renewables and current government policies don't support that.
Brought back (painful) memories.
Krugman: Like many observers, I see obvious parallels between today’s AI boom and the telecom boom of the late 1990s. (Telecom, not dot-com — overinvestment in fiberoptic networks etc. was a much bigger deal than overvalued websites.)
Then as now, huge amounts of business investment were driven by enthusiasm about an exciting new technology. And the enthusiasm back then was justified!
Remember Level 3 Communications, anyone?
