It is, but hopefully you could do the math and see my current electricity price is like 30 cents a kwh (generation and delivery), primarily because our state has not built out any generation infrastructure in a long long while. Not "triple" my electric bill.
Likely, being able to buy from a generator across the country would REDUCE our prices. Allowing a solar farm in Nevada to compete in markets all over the country would be a large benefit to states like Maine.
Most people are not as far from the western deserts as Maine is, so they would see smaller losses. Add to that, as others have pointed out, a HVDC line is much better than 30% loss to get from Nevada to Maine.
So all this whinging is dumb. Lets build giant solar farms in Nevada deserts and ship it all across the country. Remember, I can't have local solar power past 4pm in January. This capability would replace wind or gas power
The financial fact is that solar is cheap enough that de-rating all panels by 30% to support such a "cross country grid" would be inconsequential. It's the equivalent to buying solar panels from a couple years in the past.
wait, is that it? I can get my electricity from a solar panel in Nevada, middle of winter, far longer than I have local sunlight for,
for about 40 cents a kwh?
And that's treated as an existential problem?
Solar panels are so cheap we should be extremely overprovisioning anyway.