Nov. 16, 2016: This week it’s been the center of the universe. No, not Trump Tower. La Quinta of course, California’s host town for the NARUC Annual Meeting.
NARUC’s Winter Meeting in February and Summer Meeting in July are enormous gatherings of utility regulators and their fandom. But the Annual Meeting each November is the epic festival of regulation’s rock stars.
A tough legal and financial terrain is confronting producers, utilities and regulators.
South now 57% of new house sales, Northeast/Midwest just 16%
November 2015 new house sales were 4 percent greater than the prior month and 9 percent greater than November 2014. More importantly, from the perspective of the electric utility industry, as well as the natural gas utility industry, new house sales in the South were 5 percent greater than the prior month and 19 percent greater than November 2014.
What happens in the South is crucial to the national numbers on electricity. To show why, look at the regional breakdown of electricity sales.
America’s electric bill, two to three percent since the 1950’s, now steadily two percent
There are several good measures of what electricity costs us. What's the best? Let's try dividing the total of all our electric bills into America's gross domestic product, its GDP.
This way, we capture all our expenditures on electric service. Whether directly through residential bills. Or indirectly through the bills paid by businesses and institutions that we ultimately pay for (through our purchases of all goods and services).
We’re raising the bar, including only the most thought-provoking and engaging articles.
You knew something was up when you received your February issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly. It had more pages and more features. And a new attractive look and feel.
By now you’ve received your March issue. Still more pages and more features. And an even more attractive look and feel.
Friday’s data release from Labor Dept.: Westerners pay $3.27/day for electricity, Midwesterners $3.44, Easterners $3.73.
Like Christmas in April, we're surrounded by sumptuous surprises. On Friday, the Labor Department came down the chimney with how much American households spent on pork, postage, pets, personal care products, pensions, and everything else during the year ending June 2015, including electricity.
Punishing tasks, growing old prematurely, dying before their time.
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:
92 pages, 20 articles, 24 authors including Flaherty, Jensen, Patterson, Hyman, etc., columns by EPRI and Nat. Governors Assn.
To whet your appetite for the June issue of PUF, here are three excerpts from my interview with Jim Fama, on his last day before retiring as EEI's vice pres. for transmission and distribution. An amazing career.
"Disney World was one of our partial requirements customers [at Florida Power Corp.].
One of my very first trips over there, I went to Epcot for a contract negotiation. Every one of their guys had a Disney 'My name is Bob' badge.
The Commerce Department published last week the gross domestic product data for the second quarter. Both electric service and natural gas service, as a percent of personal consumption expenditures, were real low.
In the second quarter, electric service was just 1.38 percent of expenditures. This was below the second quarter of last year, when electric service was 1.45 percent. And below the second quarter of two years ago, when electric service was 1.46 percent.
Average residential electric bill fell to four dollars daily in 2015
Four bucks a day. On the nose. That's what the average American household pays for their home's electric utility service.
Last week, the Labor Department released the results of the Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2015. It's the mother lode, on what consumers spend for everything, including electric and natural gas service.
The average daily electric bill is down seven cents from 2014. That's a 1.62 percent drop in electricity's cost to consumers. It would be a larger drop if you took inflation into account.