Right, you can't point to a year where price increases didn't happen, so "a primary reason" becomes meaningless. It was going to happen for other reasons if it didn't happen for this one.
by my research, everything has scaled almost linearly with population. But- there was a huge, undeniable, dip in cost of a kw/h of power when lighting started focusing on CFLs and LEDs. Grid expansion stalled, and now people are upset since it started growing again
Doesn’t the rollout of more efficient lighting also coincide with the shale gas boom? This also happened at right around the time coal plants were starting to be retired for good as well, which short-circuited some expected generation cost increases.
You also had the de-industrialization of the US happening at the same time, which also took pressure off the transmission grid.
We basically had a few things offset population growth to allow us to use our grandparents electric grid investments for far beyond their expected lifetime. We’ve finally just caught up after a free ride over the past 4-5 decades.
I overall agree with you strongly, just surprised that more efficient lighting would have that much impact on grid demand.