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Law & Lawyers

Why Electric Service is This Low

Why electric service is at the all-time low, 1.30%, as a share of consumer expenditures

We've been writing this week about how electric service has never been cheaper for the American consumer than in November. 

Never, ever, over the last 695 months, since January 1959. 

The Commerce Department publishes each month an extraordinarily detailed table on Americans' personal consumer expenditures. Its latest release shows that the share of consumer expenditures spent on electric service was an all-time low, 1.30 percent. 

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Action by Choice

Time-varying rates is an effective way to satisfy customer demands.

In the 21st century economy pivoted on customer choice, opt-in is the path to tread in the provision of time varying rates to electricity customers.
Byline: 

Chris King & Bonnie Datta

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Watch Less TV to Save Energy

Off-Peak Stories in February’s PUF

A November 2015 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, found there's a major downside to the latest television technology that we all crave, ultra high-definition (UHD, or 4K).  Replacing all of America's televisions of at least 36 inches with UHD would increase the nation's electric bills by a billion dollars, to pay for eight billion more kilowatt-hours.  Five million more tons of carbon dioxide would be emitted.

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Electricity's Revenues Down in 2015

Revenues in industrial and commercial sectors down four billion and one billion

Revenues from sales of electricity were down three billion dollars, nationally, 2015 through November, per the Energy Department. Unadjusted for inflation. That’s a decrease of nine tenths of a percent from the prior year.

The prime driver was sales to the industrial sector. Revenues from industrial companies were down over four billion dollars. As a percentage, that’s a drop of 6.7 percent. Not a typo, 6.7 percent! 

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Latest Data: What Produced Our Zero-Emission Electricity?

93.5% of December’s zero-emissions electricity from nuclear, hydro, wind.

Yesterday's column said that zero-emissions electricity amounted to an impressive 37.4 percent of grid electricity in December 2015. It looks like we have the greenest grid in anyone's memory.

Where did that 120,633 thousand megawatt-hours of electricity come from that emitted no greenhouse gases? Including the clean power produced by distributed generation.

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Commerce Dept.: Mini-Era of Cheap Electricity Continues

For 12 months in a row, electric bills have been 1.5% or less of personal expenditures.

Good news again this week. The Commerce Department announced February's numbers that build up to the nation's Gross Domestic Product, the GDP. Buried in the numbers, electric bills were just 1.44 percent of personal consumption expenditures. 

Over two-thirds of the GDP is spent by and for individuals and families. These personal expenditures amount to around twelve and a half trillion dollars per annum. 

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How Low Can Electric Bills Go? 1.38%

In just 1 year out of last 58 has electricity been more economical.

There have been 58 months of March since March 1959. Of all those months of March, only one had a smaller percent of consumer expenditures spent on electric bills than March 2016.

In March 2016, just 1.38 percent of consumer expenditures paid electric bills. That's what the Commerce Department reported on Friday, in its gross domestic product release.

Only March 2000 had a smaller percent, 1.34 percent. March 2016 and March 2004 tied for second place, with 1.38 percent paying for electricity. 

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Rooftop Solar Generated Half Percent in Q1

Last week’s Energy Dept. report: rooftop solar generated less than a half percent of residential consumption in Q1 2016.

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. 

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Powerless Old Men

A chessboard, a park, two old men, memories of when power freed people

The old man, Ernest, craned and stared at a chessboard. Minutes passed. A soft breeze blew through the park. The bird above them heralded the development. 

Rook move? Or the pawn? Like looking through googles underwater, the board, the best move, felt fuzzy. Decisions once felt clear, decisive, he recalls. But that was long ago. 

"Move something, damn it." Patrick, perched across, was growing crankier by the day. "Hard to believe you ran a power outfit. Your electrons must have been the slowest in the industry."

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Gas by Region

Midwest: higher average gas bills, higher percent of gas heat. South: lower average gas bills, lower percent of gas heat

Nationally, American households’ natural gas bills averaged $439 in 2014. This is the latest estimate of the Labor Department’s Consumer Expenditure Survey.

This amount is actually lower than the average gas bills in six prior years. 

In 2008, when the average was at an all-time high of $531. In 2006, when the average was $509. 

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