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. 

The electric power industry is not new to the desire to have electric cars added to the grid. 

A hundred years ago, legendary automobile manufacturer Henry Ford and equally legendary inventor and electric power industry founder Thomas Edison, two friends who fished and camped together in late life, considered manufacturing electric cars. They even developed a prototype jointly. 

Check out this interview with Ford in the New York Times of January 11, 1914:

On Tuesday, the Labor Department released the Consumer Price Index data for September. It shows electric utility service continues to become cheaper inflation-adjusted.

Nationally, the CPI overall went up 1.5 percent since September 2015. But the CPI electricity went up just 0.1 percent during the period.

The gap between the CPI overall and the CPI electricity was 1.4 percent.

In the Northeast, the CPI overall went up 1.3 percent. But the CPI electricity went up just 0.3 percent.

Here are the answers to the crossword puzzle in October’s issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly.