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. 

The old man, Ernest, craned and stared at a chessboard. Minutes passed. A soft breeze blew through the park. The bird above them heralded the development. 

Rook move? Or the pawn? Like looking through googles underwater, the board, the best move, felt fuzzy. Decisions once felt clear, decisive, he recalls. But that was long ago. 

"Move something, damn it." Patrick, perched across, was growing crankier by the day. "Hard to believe you ran a power outfit. Your electrons must have been the slowest in the industry."

Thomas Edison's Pearl Street Station inaugurated electric service in 1882. Just thirty years later, in 1912, electrification of the home was underway.

The National Electric Light Association, NELA, was the predecessor to the Edison Electric Institute of our day. NELA published a book that year describing the must-have appliances for every room. 

Targeting the affluent household particularly, it said: 

The annual convention of the Edison Electric Institute was held last week in Chicago, at the Sheraton Grand Hotel. The first annual convention of what was then called the National Electric Light Association was also held in Chicago, at the Grand Pacific Hotel. 

That was some time ago. The first convention was called to order at 11 a.m. on February 25, 1885. A conference in Chicago in February?

Thomas Edison's Pearl Street Station had started serving customers just two and a half years earlier. The electricity industry was very new.

The Consumer Price Index was published last Thursday for May 2016. Electricity? The CPI for electricity has fallen 1.3 percent over the twelve months ending May.

During the same period, the overall CPI has risen 1 percent. So electricity is significantly less expensive than it was a year ago.

The spread between the overall CPI and the CPI-Electricity is a measure of electricity becoming less expensive. The spread for May was 2.3 percent.

The spread is computed by subtracting the overall CPI, at 1 percent, less the CPI-Electricity, at minus 1.3 percent.

Here are the answers to the crossword puzzle in the June 2016 issue:

Across

2. Gray Californian: davis

6. Peter of New York: bradford

10. Governator: schwarzenegger

13. Disgraced Texan: lay

14. Oops. Last two in alphabet: yz

18. Disgraced with 13 Across: skilling

19. Cato economist: niskanen

20. Pete of California: wilson

22. Edison institute vet: kuhn

23. Building nuclear: fanning

24. Harvard prof's markets: hogan

27. New England, then Midwest: rowe

In 1932, in the depths of the great depression, Owen Young was considered by many to be the favorite to be elected the nation's next president. The chairman of General Electric, GE, and the Radio Corporation of America, RCA, was famous and admired for his many accomplishments in business and public service. 

While Owen Young was chairman of General Electric, GE, he founded and chaired the Radio Corporation of America, RCA. So he headed the leading company in two of the country's top industries, electricity and communications. 

Incidentally, he also helped found the National Broadcasting Company, NBC. And, as we'll touch on below, he helped found Public Utilities Reports, the publisher of Public Utilities Fortnightly.

But Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1930 for something else. 

In the first quarter of 2016, electricity sales to residential customers were 346.8 million megawatt-hours. This was well below sales in the first quarter of 2015. And well below sales in first quarter of 2014.

Q1 2016 sales were 8.3 percent below sales in Q1 2015. And they were 10.9 percent below sales in Q1 2014. 

Sales in March, the last month of the quarter, were particularly low. They were 14.4 percent below March 2015. And 12.4 percent below March 2014.

Last week the Commerce Department published its estimate of the Gross Domestic Product through April. And the numerous components of the GDP. 

Including consumer expenditures on everything from window coverings to spirits to flowers, seeds, potted plants to lotteries to dentists to ... electricity.

In April, consumption expenditures totaled 12,645.7 billion dollars, on an annual basis. About 12.7 trillion. 

Expenditures on electricity were 177.6 billion dollars, again annualized. About 0.2 trillion.