All this week, we’ve been filling you in, on what the August 2016 electric price data published last week (the Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index) means for utility policy and regulation.
There was too much to fit in a single column.
See Monday’s column for CPI trends in residential electric rates, by region. See Tuesday’s column for PPI trends for electric generation, transmission and distribution in aggregate. See yesterday’s column for PPI trends in each of these three stages of production separately broken out.
Today’s column will look at long term PPI trends for the residential, commercial and industrial customers.
The PPI for residential electric service increased 61.3 percent over the last twenty-five years, from August 1991 to August 2016.
During the same period, the overall CPI for all goods and services increased 76.3 percent.
So the PPI for residential electricity increased just eight-tenths as fast as overall inflation. Nice! Electricity for households became significantly cheaper in inflation-adjusted terms.
The PPI for commercial electric service increased 54.9 percent over the last twenty-five years.
So the PPI for commercial electricity increased just seven-tenths as fast as overall inflation. Real nice! Electricity for hospitals, supermarkets, big box stores, government facilities, etc. became much cheaper in inflation-adjusted terms.
The PPI for industrial electric service increased 68.2 percent over the last twenty-five years.
So the PPI for industrial electricity increased just nine-tenths as fast as overall inflation.
Number-crunching courtesy of the industry’s data nerds at Public Utilities Fortnightly.
Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly
E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com
