Why are electricity bills higher in some states?

About the data

This page is for households asking whether a large bill reflects an expensive unit price, heavy use, or both. In a March 2026 Ipsos survey, 77% were concerned about rising gas/electric utility bills and 58% disagreed that they understood cost drivers. Its probability-based sample included 1,912 adult billpayers, with a ±2.3-point margin of error. That combined-fuel survey explains the question's relevance, not the state rankings.

EIA's residential Table 5A reports annual customer counts, average monthly electricity consumption, average revenue per kWh and average monthly bills. We combine five complete annual files, retaining 50 states, DC and the published US total, 260 records. Census divisions and nonresidential customers are excluded. We check customer totals and customer-weighted bills and consumption against the US row. National price is sales-weighted, not a simple average of state prices.

Worked example: at a fixed 1,000 kWh, the 2024 average prices imply $149.36 in Texas and $319.67 in California. These illustrative products reverse the ranking of their actual average bills because actual usage differs. They are not utility quotes: average revenue per kWh is not a marginal tariff and does not reproduce fixed charges, tiers or time-of-use rules.

Use this with your own bill: compare electricity-only charges and kWh over the same billing period, then check the utility's actual tariff. If usage changed, examine billing days, heating/cooling and appliance use before attributing everything to a rate increase. Annual averages smooth summer and winter peaks. A customer account is not necessarily a household; the mean is not the median. This dataset does not measure income burden, dwelling efficiency, separate gas bills or total household energy costs.

Changes are nominal, without inflation adjustment. The five-year comparison is descriptive, not a forecast or causal attribution. Data downloads preserve source precision; the table rounds for reading. Collection time is separate from the year measured. Source requests and checksums · Report a correction.

References

EIA data are public domain. Two distinct EIA publications share a publisher; Ipsos supplies independent survey context. Chart rendering uses the existing MIT-licensed Chart.js, which is not an information source.