Highlights: July 2023

• Texas (ERCOT) electricity demand set a record high on July 31.

• Texas (ERCOT) set both the lowest ($4.50 per megawatthour) and highest ($480.00/MWh) wholesale electricity prices of all the selected trading hubs during July 2023.

• Total U.S. coal stockpiles had a month-over-month decrease of 5.7%, reaching 122 million tons in July 2023.

Key indicators

Small utilities more commonly provide electric service to customers in the central United States

Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861S, Annual Electric Power Industry Report (Short Form)

Note: Small utilities are those on the Form EIA-861S reporting 200,000 megawatthours or less of annual end-use sales based on the reporting threshold of the EIA-861S.

Small utilities, those with total megawatthour (MWh) of sales below 200,000 annually, commonly provide electric service to customers in states with rural populations, largely through electric cooperatives and municipal utilities. These types of electric utilities are much smaller in terms of both customers and total end-use sales than large investor-owned utilities, but they accounted for more than 1,685 load-serving entities in 2021. On a regional basis, small utility sales and customers served are concentrated in the Midwest and Great Plains states, as those regions have a larger number of smaller municipal utilities and cooperatives compared with the rest of the county. South Dakota has the largest percentage of small utility sales with 18.6% of the electricity delivered to customers within the state. Nebraska (16.4%), Montana (12%), Alaska (10.7%), Iowa (10.1%), and Kansas (10.1%) are the other states in which small utility sales comprise more than 10% of total state sales.

In terms of end-use sales, Minnesota has the highest level of small utility sales at 6.57 million MWh, followed by Iowa at 5.34 million MWh and Nebraska at 5.31 million MWh. Despite being second in total sales and customers at 239,000 in the top five states, Iowa has the most small utilities at 158, while Nebraska and Minnesota are also in the top three in terms of total customers and small utility count. Of the top five states in sales, Nebraska has the largest percentage of small utility state sales with 16.4%. In all of these states, small utilities represent a majority of load-serving entities in the state with Iowa being the highest at about 87%.

Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861S, Annual Electric Power Industry Report (Short Form)

Note: Small utilities are those on the Form EIA-861S reporting 200,000 megawatthours or less of annual end-use sales based on the reporting threshold of the EIA-861S.

Small utilities include five ownership types: municipal utilities, electric cooperatives, political sub-divisions, federal entities, and small investor-owned utilities. Collectively, these small entities supplied nearly 90 million MWh in sales and served about 4.5 million customers in 2021. The vast amount of small utility sales and customers served come from municipal utilities (57.4 million MWh and 2.8 million customers) and cooperatives (27.5 million MWh and 1.5 million customers). Electric cooperatives and municipal utilities frequently serve rural populations because sparsely populated areas can be more expensive to serve on a per customer basis as large infrastructure needs to be maintained but can only be recovered from a small customer base. Electric cooperatives operate as a non-profit, member-owned company, while electric municipal utilities are owned by local governments. Political subdivisions are normally local government-owned load-serving entities such as public power districts, public power authorities, and irrigations districts.

• Principal Contributor:

• Name: Alex Gorski
  Email: Alexander.Gorski@eia.gov