Average Retail Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State.
Interesting how some prices are so different between states that are next door to each other. If you are a business that uses a lot of power there are some obvious red flag states to stay away from.
I wonder how it works out in Hawaii and California. Is the relatively high cost of power offset by the fact that they probably use less of it overall for air conditioning due to the temperate conditions?
My parents always said that the northeast took a beating on electricity prices, and it looks like they’re exactly right.
That’s a mind opener. We in Quebec pay about 5¢. All our power is hydro-electric. We heat (mostly) by electricity until the temperature goes below 10 F and then our electric rates triple and we go on oil heat. In the last couple of winters we were not on oil very much.
Well, temperate for some.
Here in San Diego, i think we’ve turned our central air conditioning on about three times in the two years we’ve lived here. But if we lived 8 or 10 miles further inland (and quite a lot of people do), a typical summer day would be a good 10 degrees hotter than it is nearer the coast, and in the inland valleys and deserts it can easily get over 100 for much of the summer.
If you combine total power costs (electricity plus gas) we pay considerably less out here than we did when we lived in Baltimore. That’s partly a function of climate, and partly a function of the type of building.
In Baltimore, we lived in an 80-year-old rowhouse. I was well maintained, and most of the original windows had been replaced with newer ones, which definitely helped with insulation. Still, the place got cold in winter and required the radiators be turned on if we didn’t want to freeze. we didn’t have central air for the summers, but we had a couple of window air conditioners that sometimes got heavy use.
Typical costs (gas plus electricity):
Spring/Fall: $80/month
Summer:$100-110/month
Winter: $140-240/month
In San Diego, we’re in a relatively new two-story condo. It seems pretty well insulated in winter (and the area doesn’t get very cold anyway), and in summer we often get a decent brreze which, combined with the ceiling fans, means we never use the air con.
Typical costs (gas plus electricity):
Year-round: $65-70/month