A national coalition that advocates for increased competition in the nation’s electricity transmission infrastructure points to the latest set of inflation data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to make its case.
The Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition says the data confirmed that electricity price inflation continues to hurt households and businesses, far outpacing overall CPI. The September CPI measured monthly electricity services inflation at an increase of 1.3%, compared to just 0.4% for the overall CPI.
“Accelerating electricity price inflation is due to rising electricity transmission costs and is a growing burden on American households and businesses,” declared Paul Cicio, Chair of the Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition.
He charged the consistent increase in the cost of electricity has forced homeowners to spend more on their monthly utility bills and reduced the competitiveness of manufacturing.
“FERC has failed to enforce Order 1000, a decade old rule that was supposed to usher in an era of transmission competition. We urge FERC to support consumers and not electric utility monopolies who oppose competition.”
The U.S. will need to spend an estimated $2.1 trillion[1] according to Princeton University to achieve its net-zero goals; a large capital investment that could be made cheaper with electricity transmission competition. Competitively bid electricity transmission projects have been shown to reduce costs to consumers by an average of 40 percent, according to The Brattle Group.[2] Competition would therefore save the U.S. over $840 billion.
Source: press release