Why Is Electricity So Expensive in Hawaii?
Rate data through June 2026 (the latest month EIA has published) · Updated September 04, 2026
As of June 2026, Hawaii's average residential electricity rate is 52.72¢/kWh, the highest of the 51 states and DC and 187% above the U.S. average of 18.34¢/kWh, per EIA data. The average monthly bill is $254.27 at 482 kWh of usage. The measured reasons are below, each with its source and date; where a claim is an association rather than a measured cost, this page says so.
In 2024, Hawaii residential energy expenditure equaled 1.8% of aggregate household income, computed from EIA SEDS and Census ACS B19025. At 2024 prices, Hawaii households paid $1,486 per year more than they would have at national-average prices for the home energy they actually used; the comparison holds usage fixed and is an accounting split, not a policy estimate. See the all-state energy-poverty reference page.
The ten-year picture
Source: EIA retail sales, residential sector, monthly (rate = revenue ÷ sales). Hawaii detail, including the last twelve months as a table, is on the Hawaii rates page.
What Hawaii's electricity is made from
| Source | Share of in-state generation, 2024 |
|---|---|
| Petroleum | 77.0% |
| Small-scale (rooftop) solar | 17.2% |
| Utility-scale solar | 7.7% |
| Wind | 7.2% |
| Geothermal | 2.8% |
Computed from EIA electric-power operational data (all sectors, including small-scale solar), 2024. Shares can exceed or fall short of 100% in combination because only the largest sources are listed. Petroleum's share is of total in-state generation including rooftop solar; Hawaii has no coal, natural gas, or nuclear generation.
The measured drivers
An isolated grid burning the most expensive fuel
Hawaii is the only state with no connection to a continental grid: each island balances its own supply, nothing can be imported, and 77% of in-state generation ran on petroleum in 2024 (EIA), the costliest common generating fuel. On the mainland, petroleum supplies well under 1% of U.S. generation (0.4% in 2025, computed from EIA data) and runs mainly as rare peaking capacity; Hawaii's geography leaves it as the workhorse fuel, which ties the state's electricity costs to world oil prices.
Scale works against island systems
Hawaii's grids serve small, separate island populations, so fixed generation, storage and delivery costs spread over few customers. Rooftop solar is correspondingly attractive to households: small-scale systems produced 17.2% of in-state generation in 2024, among the highest shares in the country, and net-metered systems offset 12.8% of retail sales (LBNL, 2026 Data Update), which further concentrates the grid's fixed costs on remaining billed sales.
The in-state spread
The state average also hides differences between utilities. Among Hawaii's large utilities (at least 50,000 residential customers), Maui Electric Co Ltd averages 58.12¢/kWh while Hawaii Electric Light Co Inc averages 53.70¢/kWh, a ratio of 1.1× (June 2026, computed from EIA-861M). Which utility serves you matters as much as which state you live in; the Hawaii page lists them all.
Analysis: what a 50-state comparison shows. Across all 50 states in 2025 data, the strongest cross-state correlates of high rate levels are deep net-metering penetration (Hawaii: 12.8% of retail sales offset in 2024, per LBNL) and long memory: states that were expensive in 2001 are almost all expensive today. Higher utility-scale wind and solar shares are associated with lower average prices, and belonging to a regional wholesale market (RTO) shows no statistically significant effect. These are associations across states, not causal estimates: high prices themselves push customers toward rooftop solar, so part of the association runs in reverse.
Questions people ask
Why is electricity so expensive in Hawaii?
As of June 2026, Hawaii's average residential rate is 52.72¢/kWh, the highest of the 51 states and DC and 187% above the U.S. average of 18.34¢/kWh (EIA). Hawaii is the only state with no connection to a continental grid: each island balances its own supply, nothing can be imported, and 77% of in-state generation ran on petroleum in 2024 (EIA), the costliest common generating fuel.
How much have Hawaii electricity rates gone up?
+28.7% over the past year and +59.9% over five years; over ten years, from 27.5¢ in June 2016 to 52.72¢/kWh (+92%, vs +44% for the U.S. average), per EIA monthly data.
What is the average electric bill in Hawaii?
$254.27 per month as of June 2026, at average usage of 482 kWh, versus $170.65 nationally at 930 kWh. Rates and usage move bills in opposite directions, which is why bill and rate rankings differ.
Related pages
- Hawaii electricity rates: the full monthly data, utilities, and bill estimator
- How Hawaii's recent increases rank, with the docket-verified rate-case ledger
- Why is my electric bill so high?, including the bill-change checker
- Home-energy expenditure as a share of statewide household income
- Look up your utility by ZIP code