The cost of household electricity went up again last year. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Few Americans relish the time of month when they have to pay the utility bill. The experience became even worse during 2010, as the average electric bill went up.
Be sparing with Christmas lights
It is now the holidays, and a lot of people are going to be putting up festive Christmas lights. One may want to think twice about a huge display, because the power costs of a Christmas light display can be a real shocker once the power bill comes in January. A string or two won’t cost too much extra, but the crazy-huge displays are sure to be rather unpleasant to pay for once the owner gets the tab. Christmas lights are getting more expensive to put up as the cost of power has been steadily increasing since 2005, according to USA Today.
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USA Today finds amped up cost
Data released by government agencies, including the Department of Energy and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, were analyzed by USA Today, who found that annual energy costs increased above the rate of inflation from 2005 to 2010. The annual cost of power in 2010 was $1,419 per year, a new record-high.
USA Today found that $1.50 of every $100 of after-tax income is spent on power. The cost per kilowatt hour as of the end of 2010 had reached 11.8 cents per kilowatt hour, also a record.
The increasing cost of electricity largely is due to the cost of replacing cheap but environmentally unsound coal plants with cleaner alternatives. Power customers near hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest had the cheapest power, some as low as 2 cents per kilowatt hour. Customers of Consolidated Edison in New York paid the most for power, at 26 cents per kilowatt hour.
Global trend
Americans, according to the Wall Street Journal, consume far more power than their European counterparts by using an average of 12,500 kilowatt hours per year compared the EU average of 6,000 kilowatt hours.
Increasing power costs have also been noticed across the pond. According to the BBC, Britain’s Office of National Statistics found that the cost of electricity in the United Kingdom rose by 11 percent across six of the major power providers, adding an additional 224 pounds (about $347) to the annual bill.
A similar effect is noticed in Australia, according to The Australian. The Australian government recently projected, due to increased costs from updating power generation to more environmentally friendly methods than coal, that power costs will increase by $300 AUS to $1,900 AUS (about $1,920 USD) per year by 2013 to 2014.
Sources
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