US retail power sales fall in May, but prices rise 3.7%: EIA

US retail power sales fall in May, but prices rise 3.7%: EIA

Washington (Platts)--20Jul2005

US retail electricity sales fell 3.5% in May compared with the same period of
2004 on mild weather across much of the country, the Energy Information
Administration said Wednesday in its flash estimate of Electric Power Data.

Cooling-degree days for May 2005 were 35% lower than in May 2004, the agency
said. For the first five months of 2005, retail sales were nearly unchanged
from the same period last year, up only 0.1%, consistent with weather
patterns. Average retail prices continue to run ahead of last year, up 3.7%,
apparently because of higher fuel prices, EIA said. 

The agency added that the 3.5% drop in May sales was closely matched by a 3.1%
decline in generation. Incremental generating fuels, natural gas and oil,
experienced the largest drop, 9.6% and 37.2% respectively, while baseload coal
generation fell 1.6% and nuclear generation was 3.2% lower than the year-ago
period.

Hydroelectric power, the agency said, continued to rebound, rising 12.1% from
May 2004 and 5.3% in the first five months of the year. EIA said a review of
Nuclear Regulatory Commission daily plant status report data showed that
capacity lost to outages or derates in May 2005 was about 2,000 MW, or 16%,
higher than the same period of last year. By the end of the month, however,
the gap in daily megawatts lost between May 2005 and May 2004 had closed, EIA
said. The agency said that preliminary data from June shows slightly less
capacity lost than in 2004, suggesting that nuclear output may rebound in the
June generation data. 

EIA also said the decline in coal generation contributed to utility rebuilding
of stocks, which grew nearly 3% in May. The increase in stocks, however, was
not uniform and problems with rail lines leading out of the Powder River Basin
led to a 1.2-mil ton decrease in sub-bituminous stocks in May from April.

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