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Residential Electric Rates to Drop in 2016

Energy Dept. forecasts residential electric rates to drop 0.7% in 2016

Residential electric rates haven't decreased year-over-year since 2002 (US average). But the Energy Department forecasts a decrease in 2016.

The forecast was in the Short-Term Energy Outlook that came out last week. 

It does project that rates will increase in 2017. The agency expects natural gas prices to rebound and rise in 2017, driving electric rates up with them. 

The decrease in residential rates this year will be only the fifth time that the year-over year US average has fallen since 1990. Three of the five times were in the late 1990's.

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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10 Most Influential in Utilities Since 1990

Amory Lovins, Bill Hogan, Alfred Kahn, Gina McCarthy, etc.

It's January 1, 1990. Electric utilities are vertically integrated. The '92 Act is two years off. RTOs and ESCOs are unheard of.

Coal dominates the generation mix. Control technologies for emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are slowly evolving. As are gas combined-cycle technologies. Gas is drilled for vertically. 

The Clean Air Act is surprisingly amended later in the year. Few are wary of climate change, aka global warming. 

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Utilities Name Game: May 2016 Crossword Puzzle Aanswers

Spoiler alert! Here are the answers to the crossword puzzle, Utilities Name Game, on page 71 of the May 2016 issue.

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 

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Man of the Year Founds PUR, Ultimately PUF

Great American, Owen Young, founded GE, RCA, NBC, and Public Utilities Reports as well

While Owen Young was chairman of General Electric, GE, he founded and chaired the Radio Corporation of America, RCA. So he headed the leading company in two of the country's top industries, electricity and communications. 

Incidentally, he also helped found the National Broadcasting Company, NBC. And, as we'll touch on below, he helped found Public Utilities Reports, the publisher of Public Utilities Fortnightly.

But Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1930 for something else. 

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Where are Renewables? Where are People?

Utility scale wind in Texas alone produced eight times more power than all the residential solar in the U.S.

Renewables generated 121.1 million megawatt-hours in the first four months of the year, per the latest Energy Department data. 

That is, in vogue renewables. Excluded are out of vogue renewables: hydro and nuclear.

Utility scale solar generated 9.7 million megawatt-hours. Distributed solar generated 4.6 million.

Of the distributed solar number, 2.4 million was residential solar, 1.8 million was commercial, and 0.4 was industrial.

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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I'm in Love with My Utility Pole

Japan’s audiophiles install their own utility poles to hear Queen better

Did you read August 14's Wall Street Journal article on Japan's audiophiles? They're installing their own utility poles to hear more clearly Queen's "I'm in Love with My Car" and other favorite tunes. (Wall Street Journal, Juro Osawa, "A Gift for Music Lovers Who Have It All: A Personal Utility Pole," August 14, 2016.)

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Electric Bills of Low-Income Households

In the Northeast, Midwest and West, average electric bills of 24 million low-income households range from around $1.80 to $2.90 daily

Today we again mine the mother lode, the Labor Department’s Consumer Expenditure Survey. In extraordinary detail, it reports what households spent last year for everything. 

Let’s look at the electric bills of low-income households in the Northeast, Midwest and West. Low-income includes, for this look, households with income before taxes averaging under $30,000 per year in 2014 – 2015. 

We’ll leave aside electric bills in the South. Electric bills there are generally higher where air-conditioners are run harder. 

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Energy Dept: July Electric Price Down

In July, residential electricity prices were down 2.4% from last July, and down 3.1% from two Julys ago.

On Monday, the Energy Department released its electric industry data for July. The average residential price fell to 12.68 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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A Tragedy, and New Coal Plants in China

In China, several tens of thousands of megawatts of new coal-fired capacity swamp trends in U.S.

Nov. 28, 2016: On Thanksgiving Day, the Wall Street Journal reported on the power plant construction accident in China that day. At least sixty-seven workers tragically died.

Per the WSJ article by Chun Han Wong, cooling tower scaffolding collapsed at the two-thousand megawatt expansion of the Ganneng Fengcheng coal power plant.

The article goes on to discuss, more generally, coal plant construction in China:

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Night at the Newseum

A night and day of revelations for a part-time Editor-in-Chief and night watchman.

Was I dreaming? Things were slow at Public Utilities Fortnightly. I needed to supplement my Editor-in-Chief pay. 

I applied and, for some reason, was hired as the night watchman at the Newseum. That's the popular interactive museum near the U.S. Capitol on the history of the news and press freedom. 

What happened next is hard to explain. That first night, the Newseum came alive. 

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