Cost of Electricity Affordable, but not Decreasing

Useful details on electric power currently and in the near future.   Useful as a baseline for establishing manufacturing costs.

Electricity: It’s Wonderfully Affordable, But it’s No Longer Getting Any Cheaper

The generations-long trend toward lower prices reversed around the turn of the century, and increasing use of solar and wind power is part of the reason why   By Vaclav Smil

The generations-old trend toward lower electricity prices now appears to have ended. In many affluent countries, prices tilted upward at the turn of the century, and they continue to rise, even after adjusting for inflation.

Even so, the price we pay for electricity is an extraordinary bargain, and that’s why this form of power has become ubiquitous in the modern world. When expressed in constant 2019 dollars, the average price of electricity in the United States fell from $4.79 per kilowatt-hour in 1902 (the first year for which the national mean is available) to 32 cents in 1950. The price had dropped to 10 cents by 2000, and in late 2019 it was just marginally higher, at about 11 cents per kilowatt-hour. This represents a relative decline of more than 97 percent. A dollar now buys nearly 44 times as much electricity as it did in 1902.

Because average inflation-adjusted manufacturing wages have quadrupled since 1902, blue-collar households now find electricity about 175 times as affordable as it was nearly 120 years ago. And it gets better: We buy electricity in order to convert it into light, kinetic energy, or heat, and the improved efficiency of such conversions have made the end uses of electricity an even greater bargain. ... "