While gasoline prices soared, area residents saw their prices for electricity and piped gas drop slightly last month, though they were still paying more than the national average.
The average price of electricity in the Washington area was 4.2 percent higher than the national average even though energy prices had increased across the country in April. The cost for piped gas in the D.C. region was 6.7 percent higher, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures released Wednesday.
This is the first time in 10 years that the local average for electricity has been higher than the national average in the month of April, according to BLS Regional Commissioner Sheila Watkins.
For an average household, which uses about 1,000 kilowatt-hours monthly, that difference would cost roughly $5.
Electricity prices had dropped a slight 1.6 percent, from $0.125 per kilowatt-hour in March to $0.123 per kilowatt-hour in April across the region. But this was still 28.1 percent higher than a year ago, when prices stood at $0.096 per kilowatt-hour in April 2007.
Pepco, which does not generate its own power but buys it on the wholesale market, has seen wholesale prices increase “consistently for the last four years,” said Pepco spokesman Robert Dobkin said.
“We’re caught in a global market of rising energy prices,” he added. “It’s a hardship on many of our customers.”
Utility gas prices decreased 1.0 percent from March to April in the region from $1.538 per therm to $1.522 per therm, but the price is still 7.41 percent higher than the $1.417 per therm households were paying a year ago. Nationwide, prices climbed 5.1 percent from $1.358 per therm to $1.427 per therm in April, and were up 11.1 percent from $1.284 in April 2007.
