Historic Energy costs

MouldyOldDough

I’ve been looking up the historical price of domestic power

Electricity cost just 2.48d per kWh in 1920 and actually dropped to 1d by 1942 – slowly increasing to 1.64d per kWh by 1962

It then increased to 5.3p per kWh by 1990

From the graph below – you can see that in real terms – power has been less and less expensive since about 1990 – in fact when measured against disposable income – today it is still cheaper than in the early 1980’s

MouldyOldDough

Also electricity is currently 16p per kWh in USA

Purely out of interest !!

markin

Seems the data stops at 2020 in the chart, I wonder what it would look like for the lower % of income rather than the medium.


The USA

"On average, electricity users in California spend about $208 per month on electricity. That adds up to $2,496 per year.

That’s 14% higher than the national average electric bill of $2,190. The average electric rates in California cost 29 ¢/kilowatt-hour (kWh), so that means that the average electricity customer in California is using 717 kWh of electricity per month, and 8,604 kWh over the course of the year."

https://www.energysage.com/local-data/electricity-cost/ca/#:~:text=The average residential electricity rate,rate of 21 ¢/kWh.

matelodave

MouldyOldDough said:

Also electricity is currently 16p per kWh in USA

Purely out of interest !!

It depends where you live, its over 24 cents/kwh in Massachusetts & California and under 12 in several other states - just for interest, you understand but not really ever so relevant to the cost of leccy over here.

The Americans haven't got all precious about extracting oil, gas or shale gas out of their ground like we have over here - in fact they are more than happy to put it onto big boats and flog it to us (together with quite a few of their trees) so we can burn it to make our leccy.

That might be whys their leccy is cheaper than ours

[Deleted User]

In Texas last year, the price of wholesale electricity rose to $9/kWh. Octopus brought in a Bill Forgiveness Plan which cost it $Ms. 

https://octopus.energy/blog/texas-energy-crisis/

sevenhills

Have you calculated in the standing charge?

MouldyOldDough

sevenhills said:

Have you calculated in the standing charge?

I have no idea whether USA customers pay a standng charge

Anyone know ?

MattMattMattUK

Well I keep trying to reply, but posting any numbers gets me the below message which really is not helpful.

Whoops, your post has been caught in on our suspicious post filters! If you think this is a mistake, please email ForumTeam@MoneySavingExpert.com with details of the post

jbuchanangb

Here's my chart of historic electricity prices. Stand charges are shown quarterly.

ariarnia

MouldyOldDough said:

I’ve been looking up the historical price of domestic power

Electricity cost just 2.48d per kWh in 1920 and actually dropped to 1d by 1942 – slowly increasing to 1.64d per kWh by 1962

It then increased to 5.3p per kWh by 1990

From the graph below – you can see that in real terms – power has been less and less expensive since about 1990 – in fact when measured against disposable income – today it is still cheaper than in the early 1980’s

i'm finding it a little confusing your talking about electric but your chart is 'all non motoring fuels'.

the chart will be effected by the change in use of fuel in the home. back int he day calor gas was much more used. as was solid fuel like logs and coal. both are still more expensive than gas and electric today but are used less. 

but if your point is about relative cost to disposable income then the cost now is about the same as it was in 1987. the difference between now and 1987 is the cost of everything else that's being put against the disposable income. fuel has gone up as a portion of costs. other things havent gone back down tot he 1987 level to free up the cash now needed for fuel. 

https://londonlovesbusiness.com/brits-would-be-taking-home-25k-more-each-year-if-salaries-increased-in-line-with-inflation-from-1987/