California households now pay nearly three times as much for electricity as households in New Mexico, and the gap is only getting wider in parts of the country. Federal energy data covering June 2026 puts a 19.54-cent-per-kilowatt-hour spread between the priciest and cheapest states in the lower 48, while Hawaii’s average electricity revenue jumped more than a third in a single year. Nationwide, electricity revenue per kilowatt-hour rose 4.5% from a year earlier, so most households saw some increase, but the size of that increase varied enormously by ZIP code. For a household whose power bill arrives every month no matter what else is happening in the economy, which state’s grid it is plugged into now matters almost as much as how much electricity it uses.
California’s 28.50-Cent Rate Tops the Lower 48
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Electricity Monthly Update for June 2026 puts California at the top of the contiguous United States, with average revenue of 28.50 cents per kilowatt-hour. Massachusetts followed at 25.72 cents and Rhode Island at 25.30 cents, rounding out the three most expensive states outside Hawaii and Alaska. New Mexico, at the opposite end of the scale, averaged 8.96 cents per kilowatt-hour, meaning California’s rate ran more than three times higher than New Mexico’s for the same reporting month.
EIA does not survey retail electricity rates directly. Instead, it divides the revenue utilities collect from customers by the volume of electricity sold, producing an average-revenue figure that functions as a proxy for the rate people actually pay. The agency notes that most of these charges trace back to rates state regulators approve, though a handful of states let competitive retail suppliers set their own market-based prices, one reason the spread between states can run so wide even before accounting for climate, grid age or fuel mix.
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New Mexico’s 8.96 Cents Is the Cheapest Power in the Country
New Mexico did not just have the lowest average electricity revenue of any state in June 2026; it was also one of the fastest-falling, down 8.9% from a year earlier, the second-largest percentage decrease in the country. North Dakota, at 9.01 cents per kilowatt-hour, and Wyoming, at 10.10 cents, were the next-cheapest states, both located in the same Rocky Mountain and Plains region that has historically posted some of the nation’s lowest power costs. That combination, cheapest in the country and getting cheaper, put New Mexico at the opposite pole from Hawaii and California in the same month’s data.
Hawaii’s 35.5% Jump Is the Country’s Steepest
While New Mexico’s rate fell, Hawaii’s moved in the opposite direction by a wide margin. EIA recorded a 35.5% year-over-year increase in Hawaii’s average revenue per kilowatt-hour, the largest jump of any state in the June 2026 report. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia saw their average revenue per kilowatt-hour rise compared with June 2025, so an increase itself was not unusual; the size of Hawaii’s move was. Hawaii’s electricity has long run expensive for reasons unrelated to this particular month: EIA’s most recent full residential bill comparison, based on 2024 data, found Hawaii’s average residential customer paid $213 a month, the highest of any state, largely because the islands still depend heavily on costlier petroleum-fired generation rather than the natural gas or coal that power most of the mainland grid.
Delaware and Washington, D.C. Also Posted Double-Digit Increases
Delaware and the District of Columbia tied for the second-largest year-over-year increase in the country, each up 13.5%. Those jumps helped push the nationwide average revenue per kilowatt-hour, across all customer classes, up 4.5% from June 2025 to 14.48 cents, according to the same EIA report.
The increase was not even across sectors. Transportation customers, largely electric-vehicle charging accounts, saw the steepest rise, up 8.8% year-over-year, followed by residential customers at 5.0%, commercial customers at 4.8%, and industrial customers at 3.0%. Residential customers alone paid an average of 18.34 cents per kilowatt-hour in June 2026, a rate that varies enormously depending on which of the patterns above a household’s home state falls into.
Connecticut Is the Only State Falling Faster Than New Mexico
Only seven states saw their average electricity revenue per kilowatt-hour decline over the year, and Connecticut led that shorter list, down 9.7%. West Virginia rounded out the top three decliners, down 3.9%. EIA cautions that the Electricity Monthly Update relies on an incomplete monthly sample of utilities and is meant to produce regional estimates rather than a full state-by-state census; the more complete state-level figures are compiled separately in the agency’s Electric Power Monthly series. Even with that caveat, the direction of the June 2026 data is unambiguous: prices rose almost everywhere, and the states moving the other way were a small, specific minority rather than a broad trend.
What a 1,000-Kilowatt-Hour Month Would Cost in Each State
The percentages translate into real dollars once they are applied to a typical bill. As an illustration only, not a published EIA bill figure, 1,000 kilowatt-hours priced at California’s 28.50-cent average would cost $285 for the month, while the same usage at New Mexico’s 8.96-cent average would cost $89.60, a gap of $195.40 a month, or roughly $2,345 over a full year. Run the same math at Hawaii’s typical high rates or Connecticut’s falling-but-still-elevated ones, and the household-by-household differences only widen further. Actual bills depend on each household’s real usage, its utility’s rate structure and any fixed monthly charges, but the underlying spread between state averages is exactly what EIA’s June 2026 Electricity Monthly Update measured: households in the most expensive states are paying multiples of what households in the cheapest states pay for identical electricity.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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