What Americans Really Pay for Electricity

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Energy
What Americans Really Pay for Electricity

Introducing the Electricity Price Hub, a partnership between Heatmap News and MIT in collaboration with CleanEcon designed to bring much-needed clarity to the conversation around energy affordability.

Brian Deese
Robinson Meyer
April 01, 2026

As the energy shock generated by the Iran War ripples through the global economy, gas prices are front of mind for many Americans. They are the most visible energy prices in our lives — posted on billboards along the highway and in towns and cities across the country, updated on a day-to-day, even hour-to-hour, basis. ... Electricity prices, by contrast, are far less transparent. Even as prices rise across the country, it is difficult for households and businesses to see, let alone understand the price they are paying for electricity and what is behind it.

In nominal terms, electricity rates are up by an average of 33% over the past five years nationwide, adding $35 on average to household bills every month, or $420 per year. Prices in 32 states grew by more than 25% in that time, with six states experiencing increases of over 50%. As electricity prices increase, what was once a relatively stable line item in many Americans’ budgets is now more volatile, compounding broader cost of living pressures.

As the stakes rise for American consumers, the lack of transparency also makes effective policymaking more difficult: Regulators and politicians are making high-stakes decisions about reliability, affordability, and future investment with, at best, partial information.

That is why Heatmap and MIT are launching the Electricity Price Hub, a new public data platform built to address this information gap. The hub provides month-to-month estimates of residential electricity prices and bills for utilities across the United States, from 2020 to the present. For the largest utilities, these estimates are broken down into their core components. By making this data available down to the zip code level, the hub empowers users to understand what they are paying and see how that compares to neighboring communities and states.

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[Goonch]

1. ;-{) The Bill

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Indeed that's correct. We're better off for this?

$10.50 to print a bill. But it's the same $10.50 to email it. Millions of dollars for the IT department to do this. Every month. $10 a customer. How many customers? 600,000 for one regional utility. Cost accountants bury transparency. Mission accomplished!

[bucolic_frolic]

2. TBH it's honestly time for radical action

Save those potato chip and popcorn bags. Open them carefully and clean them. Patch together into sheets with packing tape. Fit to windows with reflective side facing inward. This to trap IR heat inside. Could be applied to large areas of walls as well. Removable adhesive putty probably a good choice. This is said to be far better than foam or fiberglass batting because it focuses on IR.

[hunter]

4. This map says to me...

... that many homes in Alabama and Texas are leaky and not well insulated, tend to use electric resistance heating for water and air, and air conditioners are old and inefficient.

Per kilowatt-hour electricity is more expensive in California but water and space heating tends to be gas and the energy standards for new homes are strict. Many homes in California enjoy a milder climate than Alabama or Texas.

Nevada has both low energy costs and strict energy standards for new homes. That's why their total electricity costs are low.