Metro

Con Ed 10% hike a shock amid low US bills

New Yorkers were walloped with a 9.6 percent surge in their power bills last year, even though national electricity prices hardly budged, new government data show.

A typical monthly Con Ed bill for an apartment using 300 kilowatt hours of electricity was $77.50 in 2010, compared with $70.74 a year earlier, according to the data from the US Energy Information Administration.

The financial power drain came even as Con Ed customers were already saddled with the highest rates charged by any major utility in the 48 contiguous states.

The company charged 25.85 cents per kilowatt hour — more than twice the national average of 11.54 cents, the figures show.

And while New Yorkers’ electric bills leaped by nearly 10 percent, the national average power price held steady — creeping up a hardly noticeable 0.26 percent.

There’s no one cause for the jolt that Con Ed customers take from their electric bills.

One factor in 2010 was a 7.6 percent increase in the delivery portion of residential bills, which also includes Con Ed’s profit. Delivery amounts to about half of a typical electric bill.

The other half of a Con Ed electric bill goes to generating companies. Generating costs, which Con Ed passes on to customers without markup, vary wildly.

Con Ed blames its high prices on the cost of maintaining its underground distribution system, labor costs and taxes — a hidden cost that takes up more than 20 percent of all bills.

Whatever the cause, Con Ed’s residential rates in 2010 were again among the nation’s highest.

The only utilities that charge more serve Alaska, Hawaii, several small islands off the New England coast, and the ski resort of Bear Valley, Calif.

It’s unclear how much prices have changed in 2011.

Con Ed is expected to seek a rate boost next year that would kick in sometime in 2013.

bsanderson@nypost.com