The Federal Energy Information Administration collects data every year from electric utilities, both public and private, on (among other things) their power sales and revenues. The complete annual databases back to 1990 are available for download. Last night I downloaded the files for 2004 and took a look.
Cleveland Public Power sold 410 million kilowatt-hours for home use last year for $43,854,000. That works out to 10.7 cents for their average residential kwh.
CEI/First Energy sold 1,587,912,000 residential kwh for $161,911,000, or 10.2 cents for the average kwh.
These average prices put Cleveland's two electric utilities right at the top of Ohio private and municipal electric providers. EIA's database shows eight other investor-owned electric utilities operating in Ohio, along with 43 other municipal power systems that serve more than 1,000 homes. Only one of them -- Toledo Edison, CEI's sister company -- had an average residential charge exceeding ten cents per kwh. The large majority were under nine cents, and more than half billed an average of less than eight cents.
CPP's average charge to commercial customers -- 10.55 cents -- was also the most expensive among significant Ohio private and municipal utilities, exceeded only by tiny Haskins Village (which seems to really stick it to the 39 businesses on its municipal system).
Like I've been saying, the most expensive electricity in Ohio comes from CPP.
But perhaps more troubling from an economic standpoint (i.e. our jobs rather than our budgets) is where our electric rates fit in the national picture. Here are the average kwh charges paid last year by commercial users in the twenty biggest Mid-Atlantic and Midwest cities, according to the EIA data:
Was someone talking about reducing the cost of doing business in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio? Maybe we could start with CPP and CEI rates. Just a thought.