That's what the previous comment is saying - the tenant is responsible for the electricity cost, but has no ability to make capital improvements/investments to increase efficiency. Meanwhile, the apartment owner has no incentive to make those same investments, because they aren't on the hook for the monthly energy costs. It's a mismatched set of incentives that results in cheaper, low efficiency apartment buildings and higher energy usage across the country.

In theory people should consider electricity cost when selecting where they live. Maybe there is an issue with getting that information. But I think this is the same with all renting, not just apartments.

NYC buildings now have an "efficiency" rating they're required to post on the front of their building. Doesn't give you a $, but maybe a gist of what your energy bill might be like.

In Germany (and I believe the entire EU?) we now have a "building energy passport" that summarizes information like this, broken down into simple numbers and rating scales. It has to be provided when selling or renting a place, and definitely influences behavior.

> In theory people should consider electricity cost when selecting where they live.

In theory, perhaps.

But how many people truly have the capability to choose where to live? Most are happy enough to find somewhere they could afford, let alone afford near enough to where they work, and they can't just go find new work to find better (more efficient, in this case) living conditions so easily.

Given the other answers I got shows that this is something that is done and people have found solutions too.

Many people look at multiple places when they are looking for a place to live.

Its unrealistic to think that for most people there is only a single possible place they can live.

So as soon as you have two places you are considering, having information about what future cost will be, will make you help prioritize one over the other.

Pretty sure OP meant apartment landlords/owners. I can see how you mistook it though, I had to read it a couple of times. Initially, you think individual apartments (i.e. renters) not apartments as in the owners/landlords of the apartments.

Just a datapoint, I had an apartment (2019) that had all utilities included (water, electric, no gas in the building). I wondered many times if they would be able to detect a bitcoin mining operation or if they would notice.

Back in the olden days of hot lights, grow houses could be detected by the large amount of electricity being used.

We had a guy who found a direct connection to the grid and it was noticed, reading the article the setup was in the 2-5kW range. How many goes unnoticed is another issue.

"Vast majority of apartments" seems to be referring to the building/complex owner, not individual renters. In other words, you pay the energy bill but you don't have a say in which efficiency upgrades are implemented.