April’s electric bills averaged around $86.50, $2.88 per day
U.S. households paid utilities $10.9 billion for electric service in April. That's what the Energy Department told us Friday in its latest data release.
It was the least that households have spent on electricity in a while. The last time a month's electric bills were this low? April 2012, four years earlier.
Over these four years, April 2012 to April 2016, the number of households increased by about four percent. And the overall consumer price index increased by about four and a half percent.
So this April's electric bills were actually significantly lower than in April of four years earlier, per household, inflation-adjusted.
The average electric bill this April was around $86.50, assuming there are some 126 million households. Per day, electric service averaged $2.88.
April electric bills tend to be among the lowest of the year, of course, due to the month's typically moderate temperatures. In contrast, U.S. households paid 73 percent more for electric service last July, compared with this April.
Low electric bills this April resulted from unusually low per-kilowatt-hour rates and usually low kilowatt-hour usage. Rates were 1.7 percent lower in April 2016 than in April 2015, on average. Usage was 2.1 percent lower in April 2016 than in April 2015.
Number-crunching courtesy of eighty-seven year-old Public Utilities Fortnightly.
Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly
E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com
