Residential customers paid seven percent less for electric service in February 2016.
Residential customers in New York paid 23 percent less for electric service this February than in February 2015, per new Energy Department data released Thursday. In Massachusetts residential customers paid 22 percent less. Same in Connecticut.
Part of the reason was fewer kilowatt-hours taken. In New York, residential customers took 9 percent fewer. In Massachusetts, they took 15 percent fewer. In Connecticut, they took 17 percent fewer.
And part of the reason was that the price per kilowatt-hour dropped. In New York, the price paid by residential customers dropped 15 percent. In Massachusetts, the price dropped 9 percent. In Connecticut, the price dropped 5 percent.
Nationally, residential customers paid 7 percent less for electric service this February. They took 6 percent fewer kilowatt-hours. Their price dropped 1 percent.
Other states in which residential customers paid 13 percent less for electric service or better: Rhode Island, 20 percent, Delaware, 16 percent, New Hampshire and Ohio, 15 percent, and Missouri, Mississippi and Kentucky, 13 percent.
Fewer kilowatt-hours taken and a price drop combined to significantly lessen what residential customers paid for electric service this February. Fewer kilowatt-hours taken likely came from mild weather and improved appliance efficiency. The price drop likely came from fracking driving down the cost of natural gas.
As in the evolution of the grid, Public Utilities Fortnightly is transforming from one-way flow to two-way flow. DA (distributed authors) are now sending us many great articles and columns for us to choose from, and for us to put together issues of the magazine of even greater value to you.
Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly
E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com
