Before the Memorial Day weekend, the Energy Department reported on the first quarter, January through March 2016. 

Residential rooftop solar across the nation generated 1.6 million megawatt-hours in Q1. Residential customers consumed 346.8 million megawatt-hours of grid electricity. 

So solar on the roofs of homes covered a half percent of homes' consumption of electricity.

Homes' consumption was down by 31.4 million megawatt-hours, compared with the prior year, Q1 2015. But this eight percent drop had little to do with solar trends. 

As the grid becomes cleaner, emitting decreasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other emissions with each kilowatt-hour, we can expect some rekindled interest in load growth.  

The electric car is often cited as a future source of load growth. But electric toilets?

According to the web site Priceonomics:

"For anyone who has traveled through Japan, one of the greatest cultural experiences is discovering a modern Japanese toilet. These toilets, known as 'washlets,' have many amazing features - the most notable of which is they render toilet paper obsolete.  

The lead article in the June issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly, by Tom Flaherty and Owen Ward, tells the story of the electric industry's consolidation. The impact on the number and size of companies has been extraordinary.

Let's go back in time, to well before the consolidation of the last 20 years.

Take a look at the 1925 NELA Rate Book, published 91 years ago. NELA, the National Electric Light Association, was the Edison Electric Institute of its day.

The Public Service Commission's chief engineer authored the report. It's:

"an analysis of the theories and principles of electric light and power rates... to devise a rate which will cause each individual consumer to pay in direct proportion to the cost of rendering him his required service."

A filing in a proceeding about utility business models? You might say that.

Except that the author was chief engineer of the Saint Louis Public Service Commission. Say what?

Except that the report was authored on August 25, 1910. A hundred and six years ago!

The Consumer Price Index was published last Tuesday for the period through April. Electricity? The CPI for electricity has fallen 2.1 percent, April 2016 as compared with a year ago, April 2015.

During the same period, the overall CPI has risen 1.1 percent. This means electricity is significantly less expensive than it was last year.

Electricity prices have fallen dramatically in several regions, especially adjusted for inflation. 

The Consumer Price Index was published Tuesday for the period through April. Electricity? The CPI for electricity has fallen 2.1 percent, April 2016 as compared with a year ago, April 2015.

During the same period, the overall CPI has risen 1.1 percent. This means electricity is significantly less expensive than it was last year.

The CPI for food has risen 0.9 percent. The CPI for all items, except food and energy, has risen 2.1 percent. The CPI for all services, except energy services, has risen 3 percent.

Any way you cut it, electricity has become cheaper.

Across

2. U of Wisconsin utility: mge

5. Brits in the northeast: nationalgrid

7. Hollywood public power: ladwp 

12. Cajun country: cleco 

13. Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, now DC: exelon 

16. South of California: sce 

17. Steelers and Pirates: duquesne 

19. _ _ are family, with cheese: we 

20. Topeka and Wichita: westar 

24. 5 down: nypa 

26. Palm trees and coconuts: hawaiian 

27. PPL spinoff: talen 

28. Motor City: dte 

30. Florida utility and wind all over: nextera 

Tom Flaherty, top expert on utility mergers, on the dramatic consolidation that’s taken place and still coming. In your June issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly. Must-read.

Jim Fama, industry leader on cybersecurity. His thoughts on his last day as Edison Electric Institute vice president for transmission and distribution, with a very active retirement ahead. Also in the June issue, also must-read. 

I found this book at the Library of Congress and had to have it. Fortunately AbeBooks, that has just about anything old and obscure, did have for sale this 1938 classic on rate design. And that's how I came to own a copy of "Service Charges in Gas and Electric Rates" by Dr. Hubert Havlik.

In 1984, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association published a remarkable history. "The Next Greatest Thing" chronicled the nation's electrification, outside of the cities especially, where most Americans still lived.

The first chapter, Because There Was No Electricity, tells a poignant story of how most lived. A woman's life was particularly hard, as we excerpt here: