Electricity rates don’t fluctuate like gas prices do and are not as influenced by outside sources like oil production and world politics. The utility company sets the rates usually once per year and has to be approved by the state government.
Perhaps in your area that's the case but in some places like Hawaii ARE influenced by the price of oil (e.g.
Average Price of Electricity).
"Electricity prices in Hawaii are generally higher than on the U.S. mainland due to the cost of imported oil used to power many of the islands’ generators. The fluctuation in the cost of fuel, which makes up roughly 50% of a typical bill, is the biggest driver."
I can't speak with authority on pricing adjustments in Hawaii, but I found
Oahu (from
Energy Cost Filings). Just take a look thru some random letters where they discuss the cost for 500 kWh.
As for once a year, may be true for you, but it sure seems like it's WAY more frequent in California on PG&E.
"They just keep going up": PG&E wants to raise rates enough to boost its revenue to reduce wildfire risk from Sept 14, 2023
PG&E becomes California's most expensive power provider went into effect Jan 1, 2024
‘This is nuts': PG&E customers stunned by first bills since rate hikes from Jan 25, 2024 "As NBC Bay Area first reported, there is another increase in the works to pay for last year's storm damage. If regulators approve it in March, the typical electric bill will go up another $14." And yes, our rates jumped on Jan 1, 2024 and went up slightly on March 1, 2024.
You can look at the first section of
Rates and Tariffs to see how often our rates changes.
Too bad nobody is submitted the E-1 rate sheet to archive.org very often but you can confirm some of the changes by looking at the 2022 thru 2024 snapshots at
Wayback Machine.
BTW, EV2-A (see page 2 of
https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV2 (Sch).pdf) is our EV rate for those w/o separate meter for their EVSE. Off-peak is 34.578 cents per kWh. Rest of day it's 51.4 to 65.8 cents per kWh. Time bands are on page 3.
Again, too bad few people submitted the PDF to the Wayback Machine.
Wayback Machine were rates effective March 1, 2023
Wayback Machine was for Jan 1, 2024.