Your energy bill separates delivery and supply charges. How would that look if other services did the same?

Many customers look at their electric bill and wonder:

“Why is the delivery charge such a big part of my bill—sometimes even more than the energy I use?”

That’s a fair question. In everyday life, the word “delivery” usually refers to a minor fee tacked on at the end—like when you order pizza. It’s typically small compared to the value of the item itself.

So when the delivery portion of the energy bill shows up as a significant part of the total cost—sometimes more than half—it’s understandable that it might raise eyebrows.

To help explain what goes into the supply and delivery portions of your electric bill, let’s look at how those costs might be split up with other goods and services. Think of supply as the “stuff” you use and think of delivery as everything else.

Comparison I

Internet Service: A Digital Parallel

Supply = Bandwidth

For internet, supply is the bandwidth or data you consume; the faster the speed, the more your pay. For electricity, that’s the kilowatt-hours that power your home; the more you use, the more you pay.

In both cases, the “stuff” itself—whether electricity or bandwidth—makes up a smaller part of the total cost of your service than everything it takes to get the stuff to you. Similar to how Central Hudson purchases electricity from suppliers on the open energy market on your behalf and bill you for it at-cost, internet service providers don’t generate data themselves; internet providers buy access to internet capacity from larger networks and allocate it to customers based on the speed plan you choose.

Delivery = Everything Else

With both internet and electricity, the bigger share of your cost goes to getting the service to you and ensuring that it is available 24/7. With the internet, this includes:

• Infrastructure: Long-haul fiber-optic lines, neighborhood routers, coaxial cables (these are like power lines, but for data).
• Labor & Field Operations: Technicians who climb poles, troubleshoot outages, and work around the clock.
• Support Services: Customer service, billing, compliance, and the back-end operations that keep your connection reliable.

So just like with electricity, the internet’s “delivery” infrastructure is what makes your service work.

Comparison II

Bottled Water: A Drop in the Bucket

Supply = The Water in the Bottle

The water inside the bottle—spring, purified, or otherwise—costs pennies at most. Just like electricity, the raw material is relatively inexpensive compared with what's necessary to get it to you.

Delivery = From the Source the Shelf, Competitively

The price you pay at the store reflects:

• Infrastructure: Bottling plants, filtration systems, packaging lines, warehouses.
• Labor & Logistics:  Production, supply chain management, and delivery.
• Support Services: Marketing, retail partnerships, and customer service. Since bottled water is a highly competitive industry, a large share of expense goes to marketing and advertising.

According to some estimates, as much as 99% of the price of a bottle of water goes to costs other than the water itself.

For electricity, the delivery portion is more modest—typically about 70%—but the principle is the same. You're not just paying for the electricity you use; you're also paying for the infrastructure and services that make reliable access to that electricity possible.

Comparison III

Pizza: A Small Slice of the Pie

Supply = The Thing Itself

Let’s return to the pizza example from the beginning of the post, since it’s the product most associated with delivery, to compare it with our other examples where the supply portion made up less than half of the total cost.

If your $20 pizza had a delivery fee of $40 or $50, you probably wouldn’t be too happy.

That’s because with pizza, most of the cost is baked into the pie itself—literally and figuratively. This includes the expenses of running and staffing the restaurant, plus the cost of ingredients.

Delivery is just the last step: tossing the pizza into a car and making the short drive to the customer during business hours.

Delivery: The Last Mile

Compared to energy, pizza delivery doesn’t require:

❌24/7/365 system management and response

❌Significant infrastructure spread out over a large area

❌Simultaneous delivery to all customers at all times

❌Strict regulatory and compliance requirements tied to operating as a government-regulated utility 

❌Ongoing maintenance and modernization

❌A wide range of personnel, ranging from entry-level to highly-trained professionals

Final Thoughts

Special Delivery

To sum it up, using the word “delivery” as an umbrella term to describe what’s happening both with energy and pizza is like using “flying” to describe what’s happening with a kite and the space shuttle. One is a delightful and simple, the other is a full-blown engineering miracle.

So the next time you see the “delivery” charge on your electric bill, think of it as the engine behind your electricity: the vast network of infrastructure, skilled workers, and complex systems that ensure power gets from the plant to your home, safely and reliably.