CON ED PRICE SHOCK – TOP ‘CHARGER’ IN US

NEW YORK, NY — Con Ed charges its 2.4 million residential customers the highest prices of any major utility company in the 48 contiguous states, new federal data show.

On average, Con Ed charged 21.58 cents for a kilowatt-hour of electricity in 2007 – more than twice the national average of 9.13 cents.

A typical New York City apartment dweller might need about 300 kilowatt-hours of electricity in a month, for which Con Ed would have charged $65.

In Franklin, Neb. or Sumter, SC – where utilities charged the national average price in 2007 – the same amount of electricity cost $27.

In the 48 contiguous states, only a few thousand residents of island resorts pay more than Con Ed customers – including people living on hyper-wealthy Fishers Island, in Suffolk County; Block Island, RI; and several islands off the Maine coast.

Prices in the Alaskan bush and much of Hawaii are also higher than Con Ed’s rates.

Con Ed executives express little worry about their relatively high prices – they’re on record saying their customers, mostly apartment dwellers, use less energy and thus spend less on electricity than other Americans.

The PSC is weighing a Con Ed price-hike request expected to boost a typical New Yorker’s power bill by around $5 a month starting in April.

Much of that money would be spent on bolstering the cables, transformers and other equipment that deliver juice to New Yorkers.

Con Ed blames its prices on the expense of running an underground transmission system and on the soaring cost of natural gas in the New York area.

“Natural gas is a bigger part of the energy mix here, and those prices, reflected in the energy-supply portion of customer bills, are typically among the highest prices in the US,” the company said in a statement.