Which states have the cheapest and most expensive electricity?
Residential electricity prices across all 50 states and DC, ranked, using the latest monthly figures published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
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The spread is larger than most people expect
The gap between the cheapest and most expensive state is roughly fourfold. The identical appliance, used in the identical way, costs four times as much to run in one state as in another.
That is why a national-average running-cost figure is close to useless for any individual household, and why every calculator on this site asks which state you are in before it shows you a number.
What drives the differences
Generation mix. States with abundant hydroelectric capacity have long had among the lowest prices in the country; states dependent on imported fuel have the highest.
Geography. Islands and remote grids cannot import cheap power over transmission lines, which is the single largest reason Hawaii sits far above every mainland state.
Transmission and distribution costs, which are a large share of a residential bill and vary widely by utility and terrain.
State policy, including how renewable programmes and grid upgrades are recovered through rates.
Reading these numbers correctly
These are statewide averages across all residential customers, so an individual utility inside a state can sit well above or below the figure shown.
They are also a single month. Electricity prices are seasonal, and a summer month will not match a winter month in the same state.
Use them to understand scale and relative position. For an exact figure, the price per kilowatt-hour on your own bill is the authority.