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California electricity cost: the country's second-highest price, a mid-pack bill
California is the cleanest illustration in EIA's tables of why price and bill are different things. Residential electricity averaged 31.97¢ per kWh in 2024 — second only to Hawaii's 42.86¢ and almost double the 16.48¢ U.S. average — and the July 2026 snapshot printed higher still, at 33.61¢. Yet the average California monthly bill was $160.86, only about 13% above the U.S. average of $142.26, because the average California home used just 503 kWh a month, the second-lowest usage in the country. Californians pay the most for each unit of electricity and buy unusually few units.
| California at a glance | Figure (with source period) |
|---|---|
| Average electricity price (2024) | 31.97¢ per kWh — U.S. average 16.48¢ |
| Latest monthly snapshot (July 2026, preliminary) | 33.61¢ per kWh |
| Average electricity use (2024) | 503 kWh per month — U.S. average 863 kWh |
| Average monthly electric bill (2024) | $160.86 — U.S. average $142.26 |
| Pacific Contiguous division price (July 2026) | 27.14¢ per kWh (CA, OR, WA blended) |
| Natural gas, residential delivered (2024) | $19.14 per Mcf (about $1.85 per therm) — U.S. average $14.50 |
| Heating oil / propane state averages | Not published by EIA for California (neither survey covers the state) |
Enter your own monthly kWh and price them at the California average — then compare the same usage at the U.S. average to see the price premium alone.
Open the energy cost calculatorWhy usage is so low
Three structural facts, all visible in EIA's published data, explain the 503 kWh figure. First, climate: much of California's population lives in coastal or mild inland zones where neither winter heating nor summer cooling demands the sustained loads that push Louisiana to 1,202 kWh a month or Minnesota's heating fuels to their winter totals — and where home heating, when it happens, runs mainly on natural gas rather than electricity. Second, the Pacific division's total energy footprint is the smallest in the country: RECS measured Pacific households at 57.4 MMBtu of site energy a year, against 76.8 nationally, and California is the division's population centre of gravity. Third, low usage and high price reinforce each other on the bill: because the fixed monthly customer charge is spread over fewer kilowatt-hours in EIA's blended average-price calculation (total revenue divided by total kWh), a low-use state's published average price is mechanically pushed upward relative to the energy rate on any single tariff. That does not make the 31.97¢ figure wrong — it is the correct revenue-per-kWh average — but it is one reason it will never match the rate printed on a specific household's plan.
What the price does to things priced in kilowatt-hours
A high per-kWh price reprices every electric decision in the home, and this site's other guides let a California reader put numbers on two of them from published data alone. Home EV charging: at 31.97¢, the 60 kWh full charge that costs $9.89 at the U.S. average costs $19.18 in California, and 1,000 miles of driving at the labeled 3.0 miles-per-kWh assumption costs $106.57 against $54.93 nationally — figures from our EV charging guide, computed directly from this state's Table 5A price. Rooftop solar: EIA publishes no system price or $/watt series, so this site prints no payback estimate, but it does publish installation counts — California holds by far the largest share of the 5,077,543 U.S. residential installations recorded in the EIA-861 net metering data — and the value of each self-consumed solar kilowatt-hour is anchored to the retail price it displaces, which in California is roughly double the national figure. Heat pumps face the mirror image: at 31.97¢, a million Btu of electricity costs about $93.70 before efficiency (arithmetic on EIA's 3,412 Btu per kWh), so a heat pump needs its efficiency multiplier — delivering two to three units of heat per unit of electricity — to compete with gas at $19.14 per Mcf, itself an expensive delivered gas price by national standards.
The surrounding fuels, and the gaps
California's gas price deserves emphasis because it breaks the usual regional story: at $19.14 per Mcf (about $1.85 per therm, dividing by 10.37), delivered residential gas in California cost 32% more than the U.S. average in 2024, so the state's households pay a premium on both of their main fuels rather than trading one against the other. For the delivered fuels, the official record simply stops: California is in neither EIA's 21-state heating-oil survey nor its 38-state propane survey, so no state average exists for either fuel and this site publishes none — a California propane household benchmarking a supplier has only the national survey average ($2.689 a gallon in the week of October 19, 2026, describing surveyed states) as context. The state-level starting point remains our California state guide; this page is the electricity deep-dive behind it.
Sources: EIA — Electric Sales, Revenue & Average Price 2024, Table 5A (Form EIA-861) · EIA — Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A (July 2026) · EIA — Natural Gas Annual 2024, Table 23 (Form EIA-176) · EIA — Heating Oil and Propane Update (week of October 19, 2026) · EIA — Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) 2020, Table CE1.1. Last verified: October 2026 — energy prices move with seasons and markets; confirm the current rate on your own bill.
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California energy costs (state guide) · EV home charging cost by state · Rooftop solar by state · Pacific energy costs · Heat pump vs gas furnace