Rising fuel costs, including coal, natural gas, and gasoline, are increasing the already high cost of your electricity, putting more emphasis on you and how you can save on electricity bill.. Here is a look at what many experts predict for the future. Also, read about high home heating bills. On average, consumers are expected to pay over 20% more than last year to heat their homes.

-Electricity bills are on the rise.

Electricity rates are climbing across the nation, in all states, after a few years of somewhat flat prices. The cost per hour of kiowatt increased from 8.4 cents in way back in 1997 to 10.64 cents in 2007. That is an increase of 24% in the past decade. However, now states are seeing double digit annual price gains.

Price increases have now hit double digits percents in many states. Over the last 15-15 months, Illinois saw an increase in electricity bills of 33%. Hawaii saw utility rates climb just below 30% during the same period.

The District of Columbia, Maryland, as well as Oklahoma are not far behind with double digit gains either.

Rising fuel and natural resource gas prices are a big factor here. Utility power plants use fuel to make electricity, so when fuel costs, such as coal, gasoline, natural gas, rise (like they are now) so does the cost of producing electricity for your home.

To make matters worse, the cost of raw materials to build new power plants is are going up as well. For example, the cost of steel and cement. So the higher cost of new plants is being reflected in your higher electricity bills. Much of this is caused by demand from China and India for those kinds of materials.