Released in June, the latest Consumer Price Index report confirmed that residential electric rate increases are converging with overall price inflation.
In May, overall prices for all goods and services rose a modest tenth of a percent, as compared to the month prior. But residential electric rates fell one percent.
Compared with the year prior, overall prices were four percent higher. And electric rates were five and nine-tenths percent higher. That’s the closest those two stats have been in a while.
Notably, the latest Producer Price Index report showed that the average price of natural gas paid by power plant owners was twenty-three and four-tenths percent below where it was a year prior. This trend is having a positive impact on electric rates, albeit with a time lag.