The extremely cold weather this winter that brought record below freezing temperatures to the East Coast and much of the Midwest exposed a major concern in the nation's electricity grid.

Many homes went without power during the harsh winter because the grid, which serves 60 million people, was overworked and caused monthly electricity bills to increase substantially, the Los Angeles Times reported.

One Allentown, Pa., man received a $1,250 bill for the month of January, and a woman living in the same town got billed $654 as the price per kilowatt hour rose to $2.

Philip Moeller, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said the prices would continue to rise as the nation looses generating capacity.

"We are now in an era of rising electricity prices," Moeller told the Times. "If you take enough supply out of the system, the price is going to increase."

Power and energy officials warn that the electrical grid will continue to weaken as more coal-fire and nuclear power plants shutdown. Expensive costs of renewable energy have not helped much either.

According to the Times, a study suggests that electricity prices will soar by 47 percent in California during the course of 16 years as a result of the state's growing use of pricey renewable energy. Energy Department figures state that between 2006 and 2012, the price of electricity rose by 30 percent while other states across the U.S. have experienced similar double-digit jumps in the last decade, the Times reported.

Preventative global warming initiatives that the federal government has been implementing to combat climate change, including emissions and greenhouse gas regulations, have all led to the skyrocketing electrical prices, Daniel Kish, senior vice president at the Institute for Energy Research said.

"Everywhere you turn, there are proposals and regulations to make prices go higher," Kish said. "The trend line is up, up, up. We are going into uncharted territory."

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