Utility average retail customers measure the average number of retail customer accounts served during a reporting period.
The metric is a customer-base measure, not an electricity-demand measure.
Customer growth and electricity usage are different drivers
A utility can increase retail sales because it serves more customers, because existing customers use more electricity, or both.
Duke Energy separately reports average customer counts and gigawatt-hour sales by customer class. That makes it possible to distinguish growth in the number of accounts from changes in usage per account.
For example, residential customer growth can support sales even when appliance efficiency or conservation reduces average household consumption.
Average customers differ from year-end customers
Average customer counts smooth additions and losses across the reporting period.
A year-end account count is a point-in-time measure. If a service territory adds customers steadily throughout the year, the year-end count will generally exceed the average count for that same year.
Investors should therefore avoid mixing average and ending customer counts in growth calculations.
Customer class matters
Utilities often separate customers into categories such as:
- residential;
- commercial;
- industrial; and
- other retail classes.
A new residential account and a large data-center account are both customers, but their electricity demand can differ enormously. Customer counts therefore need to be read with Utility Retail Electric Sales and Utility System Peak Demand.
Primary-source examples
Utility average retail customers are most useful as a served-customer-base measure. They help explain where demand growth comes from, but they do not show how much electricity each customer uses or how much infrastructure the system needs.
Part of the Regulated Utility Operating Model
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