Law & Lawyers

The annual convention of the Edison Electric Institute was held last week in Chicago, at the Sheraton Grand Hotel. The first annual convention of what was then called the National Electric Light Association was also held in Chicago, at the Grand Pacific Hotel. 

That was some time ago. The first convention was called to order at 11 a.m. on February 25, 1885. A conference in Chicago in February?

Thomas Edison's Pearl Street Station had started serving customers just two and a half years earlier. The electricity industry was very new.

The Labor Department has published Consumer Expenditure Survey data on how Americans of different ages spend differently. The survey shows how age affects expenses for electric and natural gas utility service. 

Twenty-two percent of households were classified as the youngest. Those surveyed averaged twenty-seven years old. 

These households spent $1,125 on electric service, on average, during the twelve months through June 2015. 

An excerpt from October’s Public Utilities Fortnightly, From the Editor, pages 4 and 6:

If you believe the nation’s electric grid (including its generating, transmission and distribution infrastructure) doesn’t need much tending to, doesn’t need much capital investment, then the financial strength of our utilities doesn’t matter much to you. 

But consider the converse. If you believe the grid does need much tending to, does need much investment, then the financial strength of our utilities does matter a whole lot to you… 

A number of states are discussing retail electric and gas distribution rates based on demand considerations. It may come as a surprise, to some, that demand rates are not new at all to the public utility industry. 

According to my 1917 edition of Public Utility Rates by Harry Barker, the concept of a multi-part tariff was first introduced in 1892. 

Dr. John Hopkinson in England gave an address to the Junior Engineering Society. His two-part demand and energy rate is still known as the Hopkinson Demand Rate.