A nationwide comparison of electric utility performance by an Illinois consumer advocacy group found that customers in states heavily dependent on heating oil and natural gas, such as the Northeast and South, tend to pay more than those with larger amounts of carbon-free electricity generation, among other findings.
Michigan was also found to be among the worst performing states for overall utility performance.
the report The Illinois-based Citizens Utility Board ranked all 50 states and the District of Columbia for utility reliability, affordability, and environmental responsibility, using 2020 public data from the US Energy Information Administration, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, and the US Census Bureau .
For overall performance in these categories, the top 10, starting with highest ranked, were Washington, Nevada, the District of Columbia, South Dakota, Illinois, Colorado, Arizona, Minnesota, Oregon and Nebraska. The bottom 10, starting from lowest rank, were West Virginia, Alaska, Mississippi, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Michigan, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and Connecticut.
Michigan ranks 46th out of 51 states with an average rate of 33 for affordability, an average of 37.5 for reliability, an average of 30.3 for environmental friendliness, and an average ranking of 33.6.
It’s the second year in a row that the group has produced the report, which began as a way to measure Illinois relative to other states and morphed into a project it hopes utility regulators, electric rate payers and will be useful to government decision makers across the country. said David Kolata, executive director of the board.
“We’ve tried to give as complete a picture as possible,” he said. “We look at this as a conversation starter, not a conversation ender. We believe it provides a convenient and accessible way to get at that data. … Our hope is that every state will improve in these categories.”
affordability
Comparing electricity prices across state lines can be difficult given the wide variation in regulatory systems from state to state, the differences in tariffs between classes of customers, and the composition of their bills.
Differences in climate and heating and cooling can also make apples-to-apples comparisons difficult. Electricity customers in the South, for example, tend to rely on electricity for heating in the winter and face hotter summers that require more air conditioning than in the North, where gas is more commonly used to heat homes.
“While homes in warmer climates use more electricity annually to run air conditioners than homes in colder climates, those same homes will not spend as much on natural gas, propane or other heating fuels during the winter,” the report states. Other states like Alaska and Hawaii are expensive due to their geographic isolation from the larger US power grid.
Michigan ranks 46th out of 51 states with an average rate of 33 for affordability, an average of 37.5 for reliability, an average of 30.3 for environmental friendliness, and an average ranking of 33.6.
The top 10 for overall affordability—as measured by average household energy expenditure, total household electricity cost as a percentage of income, cost of electricity per kilowatt-hour, total cost of electricity expenditure, and cost of energy efficiency savings—were Utah, Washington, Idaho, the District of Columbia, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Oregon, Nebraska and Illinois. The last 10 states were Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Alaska, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.
Although the study used figures from 2020, those affordability issues are likely to have worsened in gas-reliant states, Kolata said, given the huge surge in gas prices fueled in part by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In November, the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association announced more than 20 million American families (approximately one in six) are behind on electricity bills and owed more than 16 billion in total in August. Power plants burning natural gas provide approx 38% of US power generation.
“There is every reason to believe that states dependent on natural gas and fossil fuels will fare even worse going forward,” Kolata said. He noted that the study found that states with significant amounts of “solid” carbon-free production, such as Washington and Oregon‘s vast hydroelectric resources and Illinois that has nuclear Reactors than any other state generally fare well on affordability measures.
reliability
Although failures are caused by power plant failures, as in Winter Storm Elliott, make headlines, only about 1% of the nation’s downtime minutes are caused by generation or transmission problems. Much more common are outages that hit the utility system, like storms that bring down power lines, equipment failures and other problems, the report said.
Using three reliability performance indices compiled by the electric power industry, the report ranked states based on how well utilities performed during “major events” such as ice storms, hurricanes and wildfires, as well as under normal circumstances.
The top 10 for reliability were Arizona, Nevada, the District of Columbia, South Dakota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Maryland, Kansas, Minnesota, and Florida. The bottom 10 were Louisiana, West Virginia, Maine, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Alaska, Michigan, and Tennessee.
In 2020, Michigan power outages had an average duration of 411 minutes per customer with major event days. Excluding major event days, that average was 167 minutes — 48 more than the national average.
In 2020, Michigan power outages had an average duration of 411 minutes per customer with major event days. Excluding major event days, that average was 167 minutes — 48 more than the national average.
In 2020, hurricane-prone Louisiana had by far the longest average duration of power outages due to major events at 3,624 minutes per customer, while Arizona, the best-performing state, averaged just 72 minutes. In the US, 2020 set a record for the number of named storms (11) that made landfall. per weather channel. Three hurricanes met Louisiana that year.
Excluding major events, Nevada led the way (behind the District of Columbia) with an average outage duration of 55 minutes per customer. West Virginia was the worst with 468 minutes.
Surroundings
The report also ranked states by their power sources and emissions data, giving consumers, policymakers and others a “bird’s eye view of each state’s mix of renewable, clean energy and fossil fuels” as well as data on how aggressively utilities are implementing energy efficiency programs.
The overall environmental ranking includes a combination of CO2 and other emissions, electricity production from renewable energy (including biomass), clean energy (defined as all renewable energy plus nuclear and excluding biomass) and savings from residential energy efficiency programs as a percentage of residential electricity sales. The top 10 were Washington, South Dakota, Oregon, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, California, Idaho, Maine, and Oklahoma. The bottom 10 were West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Missouri, Mississippi, Wyoming, Utah and Alaska. There were some interesting contradictions.
For example, Texas is a leader in both clean power generation and carbon emissions.
“Texas is big everywhere,” Kolata said, adding that he hopes the report will be a tool for politicians, utility regulators, customers and others to begin examining performance disparities between states.
“You can’t improve what you can’t measure.”
Advance payment Reporter Laina G. Stebbins contributed to this story.