The lead article in the June issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly, by Tom Flaherty and Owen Ward, tells the story of the electric industry's consolidation. The impact on the number and size of companies has been extraordinary.

Let's go back in time, to well before the consolidation of the last 20 years.

Take a look at the 1925 NELA Rate Book, published 91 years ago. NELA, the National Electric Light Association, was the Edison Electric Institute of its day.

The Public Service Commission's chief engineer authored the report. It's:

"an analysis of the theories and principles of electric light and power rates... to devise a rate which will cause each individual consumer to pay in direct proportion to the cost of rendering him his required service."

A filing in a proceeding about utility business models? You might say that.

Except that the author was chief engineer of the Saint Louis Public Service Commission. Say what?

Except that the report was authored on August 25, 1910. A hundred and six years ago!

The Consumer Price Index was published last Tuesday for the period through April. Electricity? The CPI for electricity has fallen 2.1 percent, April 2016 as compared with a year ago, April 2015.

During the same period, the overall CPI has risen 1.1 percent. This means electricity is significantly less expensive than it was last year.

Electricity prices have fallen dramatically in several regions, especially adjusted for inflation. 

The Consumer Price Index was published Tuesday for the period through April. Electricity? The CPI for electricity has fallen 2.1 percent, April 2016 as compared with a year ago, April 2015.

During the same period, the overall CPI has risen 1.1 percent. This means electricity is significantly less expensive than it was last year.

The CPI for food has risen 0.9 percent. The CPI for all items, except food and energy, has risen 2.1 percent. The CPI for all services, except energy services, has risen 3 percent.

Any way you cut it, electricity has become cheaper.

Across

2. U of Wisconsin utility: mge

5. Brits in the northeast: nationalgrid

7. Hollywood public power: ladwp 

12. Cajun country: cleco 

13. Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, now DC: exelon 

16. South of California: sce 

17. Steelers and Pirates: duquesne 

19. _ _ are family, with cheese: we 

20. Topeka and Wichita: westar 

24. 5 down: nypa 

26. Palm trees and coconuts: hawaiian 

27. PPL spinoff: talen 

28. Motor City: dte 

30. Florida utility and wind all over: nextera 

Tom Flaherty, top expert on utility mergers, on the dramatic consolidation that’s taken place and still coming. In your June issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly. Must-read.

Jim Fama, industry leader on cybersecurity. His thoughts on his last day as Edison Electric Institute vice president for transmission and distribution, with a very active retirement ahead. Also in the June issue, also must-read. 

I found this book at the Library of Congress and had to have it. Fortunately AbeBooks, that has just about anything old and obscure, did have for sale this 1938 classic on rate design. And that's how I came to own a copy of "Service Charges in Gas and Electric Rates" by Dr. Hubert Havlik.

In 1984, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association published a remarkable history. "The Next Greatest Thing" chronicled the nation's electrification, outside of the cities especially, where most Americans still lived.

The first chapter, Because There Was No Electricity, tells a poignant story of how most lived. A woman's life was particularly hard, as we excerpt here: 

We're inspired by stories of the nation's electrification in the twentieth century.And the lasting monuments to the toil of our grandfathers and fathers: the Hoover Dam, a hundred nuclear workhorses, a grid spanning the continent. 

Many have thought that this industry's best days are long behind us, in that fading age of miracles.They should look closer at our great achievements, the monuments we've erected in the last twenty-five years.

Take a look at this list, my nominees for electricity's greatest achievements since 1991:

The 1937 hit movie Slim starred Henry Fonda and Pat O’Brian. It stirred millions of Americans with rivalries among men, and romance with the likes of Margaret Lindsay and Jane Wyman (who later became Ronald Reagan’s first wife).

The men were linemen risking their lives to build and maintain the fast-developing grid.