Various factors influence customer costs, including voltage differences, distances between generation points and consumption points, and customer-density. Recognition of these factors has led to the development of cost allocation formulas that approximate the actual costs for which each customer class is responsible.
The extraordinary rise in receipts over the past decade resulted from the exceptional performance of the U.S. economy and the associated rise in the market value of assets, which helped lift receipts from 17-1/2 percent of GDP in fiscal year 1992 to a postwar high of nearly 21 percent of GDP in fiscal 2000.