Electricity’s Producer Price Index up just 3.7% from August 2004, while overall Consumer Price Index up 9.9%
Late last week, the feds dumped a wealth of August electric price data on our desk. This week, we’re filling you in, on what it all means for utility policy and regulation.
There’s too much to fit in a single column. See yesterday’s column for Consumer Price Index trends in residential electric rates, by region. Here today is another taste. To get the full story, catch all the columns this week.
The Consumer Price Index tracks, among other things, the prices charged by utilities and paid by residential customers.
The Producer Price Index tracks, among other things, the prices charged by utilities and paid by industrial, commercial and residential customers. For industrial and commercial customers, electric utility service is a factor in their production.
The PPI even breaks out and tracks the prices of our electric generation, transmission and distribution stages of production.
In August 2016, the PPI for electric generation, transmission and distribution in aggregate stood at 144.4.
This is below the number for August 2015, 146.7. And below the number for August 2014, 145.9.
In plain language, the prices charged by our sector this August were below that of the two previous Augusts.
It gets better. The PPI for electric generation, transmission and distribution in aggregate stood at 139.2 back in August 2008. That was eight years ago.
The prices by our sector this August were just 3.7 percent above those of eight years ago.
Let’s put this in perspective. The Consumer Price Index for all goods and services rose 9.9 percent during that same period.
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
