Why Is My Electric Bill So High?
Data through June 2026 (the latest month EIA has published) · Updated September 04, 2026
As of June 2026, the average U.S. residential electricity rate is 18.34¢/kWh, up +5.0% in one year and +38.7% since June 2020, per EIA data. The average monthly bill is $170.65. A high bill has three immediate causes: you used more electricity, your rate went up, or the structure of your bill changed. Behind the rate increases sits a structural shift: U.S. electricity demand is growing again, led by data centers, while spending on the grid itself keeps climbing.
First, diagnose your own bill: the three drivers
Before the big picture, check which of these applies to you. Compare this month's bill to the same month last year, not to last month.
- You used more electricity. Usage is strongly seasonal. In 2025, the average U.S. home used as little as 678 kWh in April and as much as 1166 kWh in July, per EIA data. That swing alone can move a bill by $89 at the current average rate. Your bill prints the kWh you used; compare it to the same month a year ago before blaming the rate.
- Your rate went up. The U.S. average residential rate rose +5.0% over the past year, and some states rose far more. Look up your state's trend on our rates-by-state hub; every state page charts the last three years against the national average.
- The bill itself changed. A higher fixed monthly charge, a new rider approved in a rate case, an expired fixed-rate supply contract (in states with retail choice), or a switch to time-of-use billing can all raise a bill even when usage and the headline rate are flat. Compare the fixed charges and the per-kWh line items against an old bill.
Bill-change checker: split your increase into dollars
Take this month's bill and the same month last year's bill (both print total dollars and total kWh) and the change splits exactly in two:
change = (kWh change × last year's rate) + (rate change × this year's kWh)
where each bill's effective rate is its total dollars divided by its kWh, so taxes, riders and fixed charges are all inside the rate term. The first term is what using more (or less) electricity cost you; the second is what paying more per kWh cost you. The two always add up to the whole change.
Worked example: the average U.S. home, June 2025 to June 2026
From the same EIA series as the rest of this page: the average U.S. residential bill went from $165.52 (947 kWh at an effective 17.48¢/kWh) in June 2025 to $170.65 (930 kWh at 18.35¢/kWh) in June 2026, a change of +5.13 dollars. The split: usage -2.97 dollars (-17 kWh at last year's rate), rate +8.10 dollars (+0.87¢/kWh on this year's usage). The two terms sum to the change.
What the two numbers cannot see: six things to check on the bill itself
The split tells you where the dollars moved; these are the usual reasons each term moved. All of them are printed on the bill.
| Check | Where it shows up | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Billing-period length | Usage term | The service dates. A 33-day period vs a 29-day one is a 14% usage difference by itself; the checker's optional days fields compare kWh per day. |
| Weather | Usage term | Heating and cooling dominate the seasonal swing (678 to 1166 kWh for the average home in 2025). An unusually hot or cold month moves usage even with identical habits. |
| Estimated vs. actual reads | Usage term | A bill marked "estimated" carries a guessed meter read; the correction lands on the next actual read and can make one bill look wild. |
| Fixed customer charges | Rate term | The flat monthly charge. When it rises, the effective rate rises even though no per-kWh price changed; it also makes low-usage months look expensive per kWh. |
| Taxes and riders | Rate term | The line items below the energy charge: fuel or purchased-power adjustments, storm or infrastructure riders, public-program charges. Riders from recent rate cases commonly appear here first. |
| Rate-plan or supplier changes | Rate term | Time-of-use switches, an expired fixed-rate supply contract (retail-choice states), or a new default supply rate. Compare the plan name and per-kWh prices line by line. |
The U.S. rate trend since 2020
View this chart as a table (June of each year)
| Month | Rate (¢/kWh) | Avg bill ($/mo) | Avg usage (kWh/mo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 2020 | 13.22 | 127.17 | 962 |
| June 2021 | 13.83 | 131.74 | 953 |
| June 2022 | 15.30 | 148.88 | 973 |
| June 2023 | 16.09 | 137.97 | 858 |
| June 2024 | 16.38 | 159.36 | 973 |
| June 2025 | 17.47 | 165.52 | 947 |
| June 2026 | 18.34 | 170.65 | 930 |
Why rates keep rising: demand is back, led by data centers
For roughly 15 years, U.S. electricity demand was close to flat, and utilities competed to serve the same load. That era is over, and the clearest driver is data centers.
- Data centers used 192 TWh of electricity in 2024, 4.7% of all U.S. consumption, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's 2025 Update (June 2026) to its U.S. Data Center Energy Usage Report. The update projects 649 TWh by 2030 in its Reference Case, 11.8% of U.S. electricity, with a scenario range of 521 to 843 TWh (9.5% to 15.3%). Full figures and charts on our data center energy page.
- Scarcity is now priced into wholesale markets. In PJM, the grid operator for 67 million people across 13 states and DC, the price generators are paid just to be available (the "capacity" price) cleared at $28.92/MW-day for 2024/25, $269.92 for 2025/26, $329.17 for 2026/27, $333.44 for 2027/28, and $325.00 for 2028/29, the last three at a FERC-approved price cap, per PJM's December 2025 auction results, its July 2026 auction report, and IEEFA's summary of prior auctions. The December 2025 auction was the first in PJM history to fall short of the region's reliability requirement, by 6,623 MW; the July 2026 auction fell 6,831 MW short.
- PJM attributes the demand growth directly to data centers. Forecast peak load rose about 5,250 MW between the last two auctions, and PJM states that "nearly 5,100 MW of that increase is attributable to data center demand." In PJM's own words: "this auction leaves no doubt that data centers' demand for electricity continues to far outstrip new supply."
- Capacity costs are recovered from customers over time. Monitoring Analytics, PJM's independent market monitor, calculates that including data-center load in the auction forecasts raised gross capacity-market revenues by $23.1 billion across the 2025/26, 2026/27, and 2027/28 delivery years ($9.3B, $7.3B, and $6.5B; January 2026 analysis, Table 1). That is a counterfactual auction-rerun result, not a measured bill impact: part of it pays for capacity serving the data centers themselves, and self-supplied load does not pay the clearing price. What the number does and does not measure, and when capacity costs reach bills, is on our data centers and electricity prices page.
- Grid spending is rising at the same time. EIA reported in May 2025 that retail electricity prices have risen faster than inflation since 2022 as utilities increased capital investment to replace and upgrade aging generation and delivery infrastructure, with spending on distribution now exceeding spending on transmission or generation.
The scarcity story now runs in both directions: PJM's board directed a July 2026 FERC filing under which new large loads without their own supply could be curtailed during capacity shortages. What curtailment means on both the demand and supply side, with current data, is on our curtailment explainer.
Where rates are rising fastest
From our EIA-derived state tracker: the eight states with the largest residential rate increases over the past five years (June 2021 to June 2026).
| State | June 2021 | June 2026 | Change | In PJM? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 12.96¢ | 24.39¢ | +88% | Yes |
| Maine | 16.57¢ | 29.59¢ | +79% | No |
| Maryland | 13.07¢ | 21.84¢ | +67% | Yes |
| Hawaii | 32.97¢ | 52.72¢ | +60% | No |
| Delaware | 12.4¢ | 19.29¢ | +56% | Yes |
| Pennsylvania | 13.99¢ | 21.73¢ | +55% | Yes |
| Illinois | 12.83¢ | 19.89¢ | +55% | Yes |
| New Jersey | 16.38¢ | 24.95¢ | +52% | Yes |
6 of the eight are served wholly or partly by PJM, the grid region where data-center demand growth has been most concentrated. Rate changes also reflect state-specific factors (fuel mix, policy, storm hardening, infrastructure programs), so territory overlap by itself does not establish cause; it is consistent with the capacity-cost story above.
What you can actually do
- Find the driver first. Same-month kWh comparison for usage; your state page for the rate trend; the bill's fixed charges and line items for structural changes. Rate increases by state shows whether your state is among the fast risers.
- If usage is the driver, the seasonal swing (678 to 1166 kWh for the average home in 2025) points at heating and cooling months; that is where the month-to-month dollars are.
- If you live in a retail-choice state, check the supply rate you are actually paying against your utility's current default offer; expired promotional contracts commonly reset to much higher rates.
- Run the numbers with the bill estimator at your state's current average rate.
Frequently asked questions
How much of U.S. electricity do data centers use?
About 4.7% in 2024 (192 TWh), per LBNL's 2025 Update. Its Reference Case projects 11.8% by 2030, within a 9.5% to 15.3% scenario range. Details on our data center energy page.
Do data centers raise residential electric bills?
In the PJM region, the independent market monitor calculates that including data-center load in the last three capacity auctions' forecasts raised gross capacity-market revenues by $23.1 billion versus reruns without it, a counterfactual result rather than a measured bill impact. The effect varies by region; areas with little data-center growth see less of it.
Why did my bill go up if my usage didn't?
Then the rate or the bill structure changed: a higher per-kWh rate, a higher fixed charge, a new rider, an expired supply contract, or a time-of-use plan. Compare the per-kWh price and fixed charges on this bill to the same month last year.
Will electricity prices go down in 2026?
We track published data rather than forecast. As of June 2026, the U.S. average rate was up +5.0% year over year, and EIA's May 2025 analysis expected retail prices to keep rising through 2026.
Sources
- EIA electricity retail sales, residential, monthly (all rate, bill, and usage figures; see methodology)
- LBNL, United States Data Center Energy Usage Report: 2025 Update (June 18, 2026)
- PJM, 2027/2028 Base Residual Auction results (December 17, 2025)
- IEEFA summary of PJM capacity prices and the Monitoring Analytics estimate
- EIA, "U.S. electricity prices continue steady increase" (May 2025)
Rate, bill, and usage figures on this page rebuild automatically from EIA data each month. External figures (LBNL, PJM, Monitoring Analytics) are dated in the text and updated when their sources publish new editions.