Americans paid an average of 18.19 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity at home in the first eight months of 2026, up 11.2% from the same months of 2024, according to a Washington Inquisitor analysis of monthly retail sales data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The typical residential customer’s monthly bill rose from about $147 to about $166.
The increase was far from even. Home electricity prices rose in 49 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia over the two years, and in 27 of them faster than the national rate. The District of Columbia had the steepest increase in the country, 43.3%, followed by Maine, New Jersey, Washington state and Illinois. Prices fell only in Nevada and Connecticut.
Seven of the 10 largest increases came in jurisdictions served wholly or in part by PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator for 13 states and the District that has warned that demand from data centers is outrunning new power supply. In the eight jurisdictions that sit mostly inside PJM, the average residential price rose 19.4% over two years, roughly double the 9.6% increase across the rest of the country, the analysis found.
The figures add detail to the government’s consumer price data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week that consumer prices rose 0.4% in October and 6.9% over two years, with electricity costs in the Midwest among the fastest-rising items, The Washington Inquisitor reported. EIA’s state data, which come from utilities’ and retail suppliers’ monthly reports on Form EIA-861M, show where those increases are landing.
The Trump administration says it is working to bring the costs down. “The Trump Administration remains committed to doing everything it can to lower electricity costs, grow the supply of American energy and strengthen grid reliability,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Oct. 9, when the Energy Department backed a federal regulators’ recommendation that PJM make large new electricity users pay for the generation and grid upgrades needed to serve them. In March, President Trump hosted executives from Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI as they signed a Ratepayer Protection Pledge to cover the cost of new power generation for their data centers. “That would mean prices for American communities will not go up, but in many cases, will actually come down,” Trump said at the signing.
How we did the analysis
The Washington Inquisitor downloaded EIA’s monthly residential retail sales data for every state from August 2023 through August 2026, the latest month available, through the agency’s open data service on Nov. 12. For each state, we divided total residential revenue by total kilowatt-hours sold from January through August of each year, which gives an average price that includes energy, delivery and other charges. We compared the same eight months of 2026 with those of 2024 so that seasonal swings in demand do not distort the comparison. Average monthly bills are residential revenue divided by the average number of residential customers.
The state results match EIA’s own published year-to-date averages. For example, EIA’s Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.B lists Maine at 30.23 cents per kilowatt-hour through August 2026 and 27.47 cents through August 2025, the same figures our calculation produced. EIA’s 2026 monthly figures are preliminary and can be revised. For a handful of months in which EIA did not report kilowatt-hour sales for Colorado and New Mexico, we derived sales from the reported revenue and price.
The averages reflect what customers paid, not the rates set in any single utility tariff. A state’s average can move because of rate changes, fuel and power purchase costs, the mix of customers on competitive supply contracts and the weather, which changes how much power households use.
The largest increases
| State | 2024 price | 2026 price | Two-year change | 2024 bill | 2026 bill |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 17.34 | 24.86 | +43.3% | $117 | $166 |
| Maine | 23.59 | 30.23 | +28.1% | $135 | $164 |
| New Jersey | 19.30 | 24.09 | +24.8% | $140 | $174 |
| Washington | 11.74 | 14.42 | +22.8% | $114 | $136 |
| Illinois | 15.70 | 19.23 | +22.4% | $115 | $140 |
| Maryland | 17.60 | 21.31 | +21.1% | $172 | $213 |
| New York | 24.26 | 29.26 | +20.6% | $144 | $179 |
| Pennsylvania | 17.70 | 21.13 | +19.4% | $152 | $183 |
| Virginia | 14.27 | 16.95 | +18.8% | $155 | $189 |
| Ohio | 15.92 | 18.81 | +18.1% | $141 | $170 |
| New Hampshire | 22.97 | 26.91 | +17.1% | $148 | $180 |
| Indiana | 14.60 | 17.04 | +16.7% | $138 | $165 |
| Oklahoma | 11.89 | 13.81 | +16.2% | $136 | $158 |
| South Dakota | 12.72 | 14.58 | +14.6% | $130 | $148 |
| Wyoming | 12.26 | 14.01 | +14.2% | $110 | $119 |
| United States | 16.36 | 18.19 | +11.2% | $147 | $166 |
Measured in dollars, the biggest bill increases were in the District, where the average monthly residential bill rose about $50, and Maryland, about $41, followed by New York at about $35 and Virginia and New Jersey at about $34 each. Maryland households had the highest average bill in the Washington region in 2026, about $213 a month, partly because they use more electricity: about 998 kilowatt-hours a month on average, compared with about 669 in the District.
Washington’s region
The District’s increase stands out even among its neighbors. The average residential price in the city was 17.34 cents in the first eight months of 2024, slightly above the national average of 16.36 cents and 15th-highest in the country. By the same period of 2026 it was 24.86 cents, 10th-highest. In August alone, District households paid an average of 25.98 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with 17.40 cents in August 2024. Maryland’s August price rose from 17.83 to 21.40 cents and Virginia’s from 14.17 to 17.64 cents, while the U.S. average went from 16.60 to 18.16 cents.
The District, Maryland and Virginia all sit in the PJM region, where the wholesale price of capacity, the payment generators receive for promising to be available at times of peak demand, has risen to the cap allowed by federal regulators. PJM’s auction for the year beginning June 2027 cleared at $333.44 per megawatt-day across its footprint, a 1.3% increase over the prior auction and the price cap approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the grid operator announced in December 2025. The cleared supply at that price totaled $16.4 billion, PJM said, though not all customers pay the clearing price.
“This auction leaves no doubt that data centers’ demand for electricity continues to far outstrip new supply,” Stu Bresler, PJM’s executive vice president for market services and strategy, said in the announcement. PJM said nearly 5,100 megawatts of a 5,250-megawatt increase in its forecast peak load came from data centers. It also noted that wholesale capacity “accounts for a fraction of wholesale electricity costs,” alongside the daily cost of power and transmission, and that wholesale costs make up only part of retail bills.
Where prices rose least
Outside PJM, the increases were smaller in most of the West and in New England, where prices were already among the highest in the country. California’s average rose 0.9%, to 32.58 cents, and Massachusetts’s rose 3.9%. Connecticut’s average fell 2.8%, to 27.47 cents, after a 9.1% drop from 2025. Nevada’s fell 11.9% over two years, to 13.36 cents. Hawaii remained the most expensive state, at 46.41 cents per kilowatt-hour, and North Dakota the least expensive, at 12.46 cents.
| Division | 2024 | 2026 | Two-year change | 2026 monthly bill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Middle Atlantic (N.J., N.Y., Pa.) | 20.51 | 24.87 | +21.3% | $179 |
| East North Central (Ill., Ind., Mich., Ohio, Wis.) | 16.41 | 19.15 | +16.7% | $150 |
| East South Central | 13.26 | 14.80 | +11.6% | $179 |
| South Atlantic (includes D.C., Md., Va.) | 14.44 | 16.06 | +11.2% | $178 |
| West South Central | 13.83 | 15.28 | +10.4% | $177 |
| West North Central | 13.49 | 14.70 | +9.0% | $139 |
| Pacific Noncontiguous (Alaska, Hawaii) | 35.38 | 37.97 | +7.3% | $204 |
| New England | 27.27 | 28.78 | +5.6% | $186 |
| Mountain | 14.08 | 14.83 | +5.4% | $135 |
| Pacific Contiguous (Calif., Ore., Wash.) | 24.27 | 25.50 | +5.0% | $159 |
| United States | 16.36 | 18.19 | +11.2% | $166 |
PJM states compared with the rest
To compare the grid region with the rest of the country, we grouped the eight jurisdictions where PJM serves all or most customers: the District, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. PJM also serves parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina and Tennessee, which we left in the comparison group because large parts of those states are served by other grid operators or utilities.
| Group | 2024 price (cents/kWh) | 2026 price | Change | 2024 bill | 2026 bill |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eight mostly-PJM jurisdictions | 16.66 | 19.89 | +19.4% | $150 | $182 |
| Rest of the country | 16.31 | 17.88 | +9.6% | $146 | $163 |
Not every large increase was in PJM. Maine, Washington state, New York and New Hampshire, which are outside PJM, were also among the 11 largest increases. And West Virginia, inside PJM, had one of the smallest, 4.5%, which reflects that state regulators and utility rate decisions still shape what households pay.
The money involved
Nationally, residential customers paid about $192.8 billion for electricity in the first eight months of 2026, up from about $167.7 billion in the same months of 2024, the EIA data show, an increase of about $25 billion. Part of that reflects more use: the average household bought about 912 kilowatt-hours a month this year, compared with about 897 in 2024. Most of the increase came from higher prices.
The administration’s approach relies on large electricity users, especially data center developers, paying their own way. The Energy Department said in its Oct. 9 statement that it supports a procurement that would “protect households and businesses from subsidizing large loads” and allow large users to “build, bring, or buy the capacity needed to serve them.” It said the administration and the governors of all 13 PJM states issued a statement of principles in January calling on the grid operator to adopt rules that strengthen reliability and reduce costs.
“American AI leadership should never come at the cost of hardworking Americans’ ability to pay their electricity bills,” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said at the March pledge signing.
What to watch
EIA updates the state data monthly, and its next Electric Power Monthly will add September figures. PJM has said it will hold an incremental auction for the 2027-28 delivery year in February 2027. State utility regulators, not PJM, set the retail rates that determine how much of the wholesale increases reach household bills in most of the region.
The Washington Inquisitor’s data files and calculations for this analysis are available on request.
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