How the Iran War Is Raising Energy Costs on the East Coast

I want to be upfront about something before I get into the energy numbers: there are real human stakes in what's happening in the Middle East right now, and I don't want to reduce a serious geopolitical situation to a marketing angle. The conflict that began on February 28, 2026 is affecting people's lives in profound ways that go far beyond utility bills.

But I also run a business helping families across the East Coast protect themselves from energy costs they can't control. And the honest truth is that what's happening in that narrow waterway between Iran and Oman is landing directly on your electric bill, your heating costs, and the price of gas in your tank — right now, today, in ways that aren't going away quickly even if the conflict ends tomorrow.

My name is CJ Smith. I own Solar 4 Heroes. Here's what I think every homeowner in our region needs to understand about what's driving costs right now — and what actually protects you.

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The Strait of Hormuz: Why a Waterway You've Never Seen Is Raising Your Bills

The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow passage — roughly 20 to 40 miles wide — connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. It's the only maritime exit for five of the world's ten largest oil-producing countries: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Iran, and Kuwait.

When traffic through it flows normally, approximately 20% of the world's entire oil supply and a significant share of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) pass through it every single day. When it doesn't flow normally — as has been the case since late February 2026 — global energy markets go into shock.

The closure caused immediate volatility, with Brent crude oil prices surging 10–13% in the opening days of the conflict. That was just the beginning. Brent crude soared to nearly $120 per barrel — close to its highest point of $147 recorded in July 2008. By early April, U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate had climbed to $115.48 per barrel.

The International Energy Agency characterized this as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. That's not media hyperbole. That's the IEA — the agency that tracks global energy supply as its primary function — using the word "largest" and "history" in the same sentence.

You felt it at the gas station first. The national average for gasoline rose to $4.11 per gallon, up 38 percent since the conflict began, while diesel prices climbed even faster, reaching $5.62 per gallon — a 49 percent increase. In New Jersey, gas prices hit their highest levels in four years, with the AAA average reaching $4.09 a gallon as of April 7.

But what's less visible — and what I want to focus on for a minute — is what this does to your electric bill.

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The Gas Pump and Your Electric Bill Are Connected

Most people think of electricity and gasoline as separate things. Plug-in car people especially. But they're not separate — not in 2026.

More than 40 percent of American electricity is generated from natural gas, which means electric bills are directly affected by natural gas price fluctuations. Pennsylvania is particularly exposed. Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana are among the states that rely most heavily on natural gas for power generation.

Here's the transmission mechanism: when the Strait of Hormuz closes, global LNG supply tightens. The U.S. is now the world's largest LNG exporter — a role that has grown enormously since 2016. When global LNG prices spike, American export terminals can charge more overseas. That pulls more domestic natural gas toward export, tightening the domestic supply and pushing up the price utilities pay to generate electricity here. Following the start of the conflict, European and Asian LNG futures prices skyrocketed — rising 77 percent and 51 percent respectively compared to pre-war prices as of early March.

In 2025 — for the first time in history — the eight U.S. LNG export terminals consumed more gas than all 74 million households with natural gas utility service combined. The domestic gas market is now structurally tied to global prices in a way it simply wasn't ten years ago.

Last year, U.S. retail electricity prices rose by almost 7 percent compared to 2024, double the rate of inflation — and that was before the Iran conflict began. The war layered a global energy shock on top of a system that was already under pressure.

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What This Means for New Jersey and Pennsylvania Specifically, and Other States on the East Coast Too.

I want to give you the regional numbers because the national averages don't tell the full story for our customers.

In New Jersey: The state had already absorbed the largest electricity rate spike of any state in the country in 2025 — a 16.9% increase in a single year, driven by PJM capacity auction results. That hike is still baked into every bill. The Iran conflict adds oil and gas price pressure on top of a system that was already expensive and already strained.

In Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania rates rose almost 9 percent in 2025, and Pennsylvanians were paying 46 percent more last year compared to 2018. For the last three years, Pennsylvania has seen record numbers of utility disconnections, with Elizabeth Marx of the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project noting that "families are really hurting."

And this is before factoring in PECO's freshly filed request for a 12.5% rate increase effective January 2027 — a filing that happened on March 30, just a month into the Iran conflict, and that cites rising energy costs as one of the pressures the company is managing.

The Democratic wins in the gubernatorial elections of New Jersey and Virginia last year demonstrated the political salience of electricity prices, with clean energy at the forefront of the debate. The cost of energy has become a voting issue precisely because it's become a household crisis.

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Why This Shock Is Different — And Won't Resolve Quickly

Every time global oil markets get disrupted, someone points to the last disruption and says "it recovered." Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sent energy prices surging — and then they came back down.

The reason analysts are more cautious this time is structural. The 2022 energy shock was primarily driven by sanctions and price caps that rerouted Russian oil and gas flows. Russia remained one of the largest producers in the world and continued selling internationally. By contrast, the 2026 conflict has created a physical chokepoint — the Strait of Hormuz — taking oil and gas offline entirely because tankers cannot safely leave the Gulf.

You can't reroute a physical blockage the way you can reroute financial sanctions. The supply is simply not getting out.

When a temporary ceasefire was announced, Brent crude fell below $100 a barrel — but analysts warn that even in a best-case scenario, prices are unlikely to fall sharply or immediately. Analysts projected that crude oil trading prices would hover around $100 a barrel until the end of summer, with one senior oil market analyst saying that a return to pre-war levels of around $75 a barrel is unlikely "for at least the next year."

Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz has taken 10 to 11 million barrels of crude oil offline per day, and the inventory drawn down to manage the situation will need to be replenished. Global oil storage facilities in the Gulf have been filling up, forcing production cuts in Iraq, Kuwait, and the UAE. Oilfields forced to shut in could take days, weeks, or months to return to normal production once the conflict ends, depending on the type and extent of the shutdown.

The short version: even peace doesn't mean immediate relief. The supply chain damage from a physical chokepoint lasts longer than the war that caused it.

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One Country That Barely Felt It

I want to tell you about Spain, because I think it makes the argument better than anything I could say myself.

Spain weathered the conflict with relatively stable power prices, even as those across most of the rest of Europe soared. The reason: nearly 60 percent of the country's electricity is supplied by solar and wind, plus another 20 percent from nuclear power.

Spain isn't importing LNG from the Gulf to run its power plants. When the Strait closed and global natural gas prices doubled, Spain barely noticed — because Spain's electricity doesn't come from natural gas.

That's not an accident. Spain made aggressive investments in renewable energy over the past decade, driven partly by the 2022 Russia-Ukraine shock, partly by climate policy, and partly by a recognition that depending on imported fossil fuels is an enormous structural vulnerability for any economy.

The lesson for a homeowner in Gloucester County or Montgomery County is the same as the lesson for a country: the energy that hits your roof cannot be sanctioned, blockaded, or priced by a market you don't control.

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What the Numbers Look Like Right Now

Here's the concrete impact picture for the typical household in our service area:

Sources: AAA, EIA, CNBC, Time, Al Jazeera, April 2026. Prices remain volatile.

These aren't abstract commodity prices. Diesel runs the trucks that stock your grocery store. Jet fuel runs the planes that carry goods and people. Natural gas runs the power plants that charge your phone and run your HVAC. Every one of those costs is elevated right now, and most of them were already elevated before February 28.

Nearly all goods that are bought and sold must travel from where they're produced, and those costs climb with higher gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel prices. The Iran war isn't just an energy story. It's a grocery store story, a supply chain story, a cost-of-living story — and it's arriving in your region on top of rate structures that were already among the most expensive in the country.

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Why Solar Is Different From Every Other Response to This

I've talked to homeowners who are switching from driving to transit to save on gas. Others are adjusting thermostats, cutting back on AC, switching to LED bulbs. These are all reasonable responses, and I'm not dismissing them.

But they're all demand management strategies — you're reducing how much of an expensive, volatile commodity you consume. You're still buying it. You're still exposed to whatever the next disruption does to the price.

Solar is a supply strategy. It changes where your energy comes from, not just how much of it you use. And the supply it gives you — photons from the sun hitting your roof — has a cost structure that looks nothing like the global fossil fuel market.

Here's what I mean practically. When you install a solar system with Solar 4 Heroes using our $0 down loan:

• Your monthly loan payment is fixed at signing and never changes. Not when Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. Not when Qatar declares Force Majeure on its LNG contracts. Not when PSE&G files its next rate case.
• Your net metering credits are calculated at the retail electricity rate. When that rate goes up because of global gas prices, the value of every kilowatt-hour your panels produce goes up with it. You benefit from rising rates instead of being hurt by them.
• Your fuel production — the sunlight hitting your panels — is immune to geopolitics. There is no Middle Eastern chokepoint for solar radiation.

The Iran conflict has bolstered the necessity for renewable energy, as solar and wind power can reduce vulnerability to external supply and offer decentralized power generation that provides greater autonomy from global energy markets.

That's not a solar company talking. That's the global economic analysis of what this conflict is revealing about energy vulnerability — and energy independence.

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The Compounding Problem: It's Not Just One Thing

I want to step back and give you the full picture of what's hitting New Jersey and Pennsylvania (and other East Coast) ratepayers simultaneously right now, because no single issue tells the whole story:

1. Iran war oil and gas price shock — Active since February 28, 2026. Elevated prices expected through at least summer, with uncertain recovery timeline.

2. PJM capacity auction results — Already locked in the 17–20% NJ rate hikes of June 2025 and the elevated costs built into 2026 bills. The 2026/2027 auction came in even higher.

3. PECO's proposed 12.5% rate hike — Filed March 30, 2026. If approved, takes effect January 2027. Coming on top of a 10% hike in 2025 and 2.8% in 2026.

4. Data center load growth — Driving electricity demand across the PJM region faster than new generation can come online.

5. LNG export expansion — U.S. policy prioritizes maximizing LNG exports, which tightens domestic gas supply and keeps electricity generation costs elevated.

None of these five things is going away. They're not temporary disruptions that normalize in a quarter or two. They're structural pressures on a system that was already expensive for our region — and they're arriving simultaneously.

A solar system with a fixed loan payment addresses all five of them at once. Not perfectly. Not without limits. But it insulates the electricity generation portion of your household energy costs from every one of those forces.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Iran war directly affect my electric bill in New Jersey and Pennsylvania?

Yes — indirectly but meaningfully. More than 40% of U.S. electricity is generated from natural gas. When global LNG prices spike because of disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. utilities pay more for gas to generate electricity, and those costs are passed to ratepayers. Pennsylvania is among the states most reliant on natural gas for power generation.

I thought the U.S. produces its own oil — why do global prices still affect us?

The U.S. is a major oil producer, but domestic oil is sold on global markets at global prices. When Brent crude rises, West Texas Intermediate rises with it, and so do gasoline, diesel, and natural gas prices — regardless of where the oil was actually extracted. American energy production does not insulate American consumers from global commodity pricing.

Will prices go back down when the conflict ends?

Analysts are cautious. Even a ceasefire doesn't immediately restore supply chains, refill depleted inventories, or restart production at facilities that have been shut down. Senior oil market analysts have projected that prices could remain elevated around $100/barrel until at least the end of summer, with pre-war prices potentially a year or more away.

How does solar actually protect me from global energy price shocks?

Solar disconnects your electricity generation from the fossil fuel supply chain. Your panels produce power from sunlight — a source unaffected by geopolitics, commodity markets, or utility rate cases. A fixed-payment solar loan locks in your monthly energy cost today, while grid prices continue to fluctuate with global events.

Is now a bad time to install solar because of inflation and rising interest rates?

It's a real consideration. The Iran conflict has raised concerns about inflation and interest rate pressure. But the alternative — staying on the grid and absorbing continued rate increases plus global energy price shocks — carries its own compounding cost. For most homeowners, the certainty of a fixed solar loan payment compares favorably to the uncertainty of a utility bill that's risen 46% in Pennsylvania since 2018 and is still climbing.

Does Solar 4 Heroes serve both New Jersey and the PECO service area in Pennsylvania?

Yes. We work with homeowners across New Jersey and in the Philadelphia suburbs and southeastern Pennsylvania. If you're a PECO or PSE&G or JCP&L customer and want to see what your home looks like with solar, reach out. We'll give you real numbers.

Does Solar 4 Heroes serve other East Coast states?

Yes. We work with homeowners across the East Coast, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Florida, Virginia, The Carolinas, New York, and Maryland. If you're a utility customer in one of these states and want to see what your home looks like with solar, reach out. We'll give you real numbers.

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The Honest Bottom Line

I'm not going to tell you solar solves the Iran conflict. It doesn't. I'm not going to tell you that installing panels this spring will immediately offset the $1+ per gallon your gas costs more than it did two months ago. It won't — gas is a different supply chain.

What I will tell you is this: every major energy crisis of the past 50 years has ultimately accelerated the adoption of energy sources that don't depend on the thing that caused the crisis. The 1973 oil embargo accelerated nuclear power. The 2022 Russia-Ukraine war accelerated European solar and wind investment. The 2026 Iran conflict is already pushing governments and businesses around the world to move faster toward distributed, domestically-generated renewable power.

Spain, which built out solar and wind over the past decade, is watching this crisis from a position of relative stability. Countries — and homeowners — who didn't make that investment are now absorbing the full cost of their exposure.

I don't know when the conflict ends. I don't know how high oil goes before it comes down, or how long it stays elevated. No one does. But I do know what a fixed-payment solar loan costs per month — and I know that number doesn't change regardless of what happens in the Strait of Hormuz.

If you're in the suburbs on the East Coast and you want to see what energy independence actually looks like for your specific home, reach out. No pressure. Just honest math.

Solar made easy.

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Solar 4 Heroes serves homeowners across CT, DE, FL, MA, MD, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, and VA. Call us at (856) 308-5144 or reach out at cj@solar4heroes.com.