Reinvigorating a Century Old Business Model

The Power of Efficient Capital

Customers don’t have to wait decades while the grid incrementally evolves to incorporate transformational technologies. Led by customer-driven choices and decisions, we in the utility industry can and should accelerate the transition.

PPL CEO Interviewed

We went to Allentown and talked with Bill Spence.

What are the most exciting things happening at PPL? What were the biggest challenges in that journey? Were there some tough challenges you had to get through?

Response to Brown Re: Net Metering

A response to the letter to the editor by Ashley Brown in our February 2016 issue.

Is rooftop solar more like an independent power producer, subject to societal regulation and policy, such as wholesale-level regulation or retail-level resource planning? Or is the electricity that is produced a private consumer good, immune from regulation, policy, and planning?

We Made Light Free

As inexpensive as lighting was, twenty years ago, we’ve since made it close to free. Too cheap to meter?

Will lighting drop to a tenth of residential consumption, then below? Every use of a machine, appliance, device shrunk in its significance to the household budget.

Upcoming April 2016 issue contents

76 pages, 16 features & columns, 19 authors, ducks, baseball, virtual reality, 3 cartoons, and a crossword puzzle.

With features by Bill Spence, with Steve Mitnick; Nancy Ryan and Lucy McKenzie; Brendan Collins; Larry Kellerman; Charles Cicchetti; Nicholas Giannasca; Colin Fraser; Roy Palk; and Sam Flaim and Loren Toole.

Regions, Cities Where Electricity's On Sale

Consumers in some cities paying 10 to 20% less than last year

In the northeast, consumers paid 8.6 percent less for electricity in February than they did a year ago, in February 2015. That's almost a 10 percent price cut. 

In the south, consumers paid 3.8 percent less than a year ago. That's a sizable cut too, though not as extraordinary as what northeasterners have enjoyed.

In the Midwest, consumers paid 0.5 percent more than they did a year ago. Roughly equal to increase in the overall consumer price index for the region. There, the dramatic fall in natural gas prices had less of a benefit. 

Electric Rates Drop 3% While CPI Rises 1%

Yesterday’s CPI showed electric rates dropped dramatically in February year-over-year

Did you hear about March 16's Labor Dept. report of the Consumer Price Index? The CPI rose one percent in February 2016, from February 2015. So?

You may not have heard much about the numbers behind the CPI report. You may not have heard that the average price American consumers pay for electric utility service (electric rates) dropped three percent. 

And what consumers pay for natural gas utility service dropped ten percent. This is big news. Electric and gas utility service is becoming cheaper before our eyes.