Market Data

Commercial Electricity by State: Where U.S. Businesses Pay Multiples of the 13.5¢/kWh Average

The national commercial rate is 13.5¢/kWh, but the state spread is enormous. We map the cheap-power states against the expensive ones using the live EIA series.

The U.S. average commercial electricity price is 13.5¢/kWh as of Apr 2026, according to the Energy Information Administration, but the national number hides a state spread of more than 4x. Rates in the cheapest hydropower states have historically run around two-thirds of the national average, roughly 8.8¢ at today's benchmark, while Hawaii's oil-fired island grid has run near three times the average, about 40.5¢. For a multi-site operator, where you plug in matters as much as how much you use.

One national number, fifty different bills

The EIA's commercial series, currently 13.5¢/kWh and up about 4.8% from a year ago, is a volume-weighted blend of every state's commercial tariffs, so it behaves like an index of the whole grid. The archived national series has ranged from 12.9¢ in Apr 2025 to 14.4¢ in Feb 2026, and the latest reading sits about 42% of the way up that range. But no business pays the national average. State rates are set by generation mix, fuel access, and regulatory structure, and the ordering is remarkably stable year to year: the same states populate the cheap end and the expensive end of the table decade after decade, because the drivers are geography and infrastructure, not policy fashion.

What makes a state cheap, or expensive

The cheap end of the table is dominated by hydropower and pipeline access. The Pacific Northwest, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, rides federal-dam hydro that was amortized generations ago; Gulf and mid-continent states like Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas sit on top of the gas supply itself and skip most of the transport cost. The expensive end is a story of islands and constraints: Hawaii generates largely from imported petroleum, Alaska's isolated grids carry diesel logistics in every rate, and New England plus California pair constrained fuel delivery with aggressive grid and policy costs. Between the poles, the industrial-versus-commercial logic still applies everywhere: in every state, commercial customers pay a premium over the industrial class, nationally 13.5¢/kWh against 8.7¢/kWh, because they take power at lower voltage with peakier loads.

U.S. average commercial electricity price, Apr 2026 (EIA): 13.5¢/kWh. The archived national series has run from 12.9¢ (Apr 2025) to 14.4¢ (Feb 2026); state averages have historically spanned roughly 4x from cheapest to most expensive around it.

No business pays the national average. The state you plug into matters as much as the kilowatt-hours you use.

Pricing the spread into a site decision

Make it concrete. A facilities director comparing two candidate sites for an operation using 500,000 kWh a year, light manufacturing, a distribution hub with refrigeration, a large retail-format service center, might face one market at 0.8 times the national average and another at 1.5 times, both entirely ordinary positions on the state table. At today's 13.5¢/kWh benchmark, the cheap site's annual power bill runs about $54,040; the expensive site's, about $101,325. That $47,285-a-year gap recurs every year of a ten-year lease, is immune to negotiation, and frequently exceeds the rent differential that dominated the site-selection spreadsheet. Electricity deserves its own line in the location model, priced from the live state data, not from a stale planning factor.

Use the energy intensity calculator to turn kWh per unit and your local rate into a site-comparable cost metric. Benchmark your energy intensity

Published 2026-07-13.