Our Mission

We believe energy costs are too important to be opaque. Electricity is a basic necessity, yet comparing rates across states, understanding generation mixes, and tracking price trends over time requires navigating dense government spreadsheets and technical data portals that most people will never visit.

RateWatt exists to change that. We built this portal to make US energy data accessible to everyone, homeowners comparing costs before a move, researchers studying energy policy, journalists reporting on utility trends, and students exploring how America powers itself. Every data point we present comes from the same federal source that policymakers rely on, transformed into a format anyone can understand.

Our philosophy is simple: public data should be publicly useful. The US government collects detailed energy statistics at taxpayer expense. We make sure those statistics reach the people they were collected to serve.

Our Data Sources

All data on RateWatt comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy. The EIA is the nation's premier source of energy information, collecting data from utilities, power plants, and energy companies across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Specifically, we use the following EIA datasets:

• Retail Sales of Electricity, average electricity prices (cents per kilowatt-hour) for residential, commercial, and industrial sectors by state
• Net Generation by State, electricity generation volumes by energy source (coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, biomass, geothermal, and petroleum)
• National Average Prices, benchmark figures for comparing individual state performance against the national average across all sectors

All EIA data is public domain, collected under federal mandate and published for the benefit of policymakers, markets, and the public.

How We Process the Data

Our methodology follows a straightforward pipeline designed to preserve accuracy while improving accessibility:

1. Data acquisition, We download raw JSON datasets from EIA's public API endpoints, covering retail electricity sales and generation statistics for all states and territories.
2. Sector mapping, EIA uses internal codes (RES, COM, IND, ALL) to classify electricity sectors. We map these to human-readable labels: residential, commercial, industrial, and total.
3. Generation source classification, Raw energy source codes are mapped to recognizable categories like coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar. Related subcategories are consolidated where appropriate.
4. State profile assembly, Price data and generation mix data are combined into per-state profiles that show both what electricity costs and how it is produced in each state.
5. Historical trend computation, We retain a rolling annual price history for each state and a recent monthly layer, enabling year-over-year, long-window, and within-year comparisons.
6. Rankings and benchmarks, States are ranked by price within each sector, and each state's prices are compared against the computed national average.

No data is estimated, adjusted, or modeled. We present EIA figures as reported, with only the organizational transformations described above.

Data Currency

Our annual comparisons use the latest complete annual period available from the EIA API at each database refresh. A separate recent monthly layer supports current-period and seasonal context. Individual data pages display the period they actually read from the database.

Annual figures are statewide averages, while the monthly layer contains statewide monthly averages. Neither is a live utility tariff or a real-time wholesale spot price. For the most current data vintage, check the date displayed on individual state profile pages.

What We Cover

• Residential, commercial, and industrial electricity prices by state
• Rolling annual price histories and recent monthly seasonality
• Energy generation mix (solar, wind, natural gas, coal, nuclear, hydro, and more)
• State-by-state rankings and comparisons across all sectors
• National averages and benchmarks for contextual comparison

Editorial Independence

RateWatt is an independent, solo-operated data portal. Raw data from public government datasets is transformed into readable profiles and validated against the source before publication. RateWatt is accountable as the publisher for its editorial standards, methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from any covered entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense, advertisers do not influence which entities we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Limitations and Disclaimers

While we strive for completeness and accuracy, users should be aware of the following limitations:

• Averages, not actual rates, Prices shown are statewide averages across all utilities. Your actual electricity rate depends on your specific utility provider, rate plan, usage tier, time-of-use schedule, and local regulations.
• State averages, not tariffs, The annual and monthly series are statewide averages. They do not reproduce a utility's fixed charges, tiers, time-of-use periods, or a customer's actual bill.
• Reporting lag, Final annual records arrive after the reporting year, while monthly statewide averages are newer but still published after the month they describe. Neither frequency reflects a live tariff change, regulatory action, or wholesale-market move.
• Generation vs. consumption, Generation mix data shows what energy sources are used to produce electricity within a state. Some states import significant electricity from neighboring states, meaning the power consumed may come from different sources than what is generated locally.
• Not financial advice, This data is for informational and educational purposes only. Always check with your utility provider for your specific rates and consult qualified professionals before making major energy-related financial decisions.

Publisher

RateWatt is a data intelligence company that builds free, public-interest data portals from government datasets. RateWatt focuses exclusively on U.S. electricity pricing and generation data; for every figure on the site, the primary source is the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Open Data

RateWatt publishes a machine-readable extract of statewide electricity rates derived from EIA retail-sales / State Electricity Profiles. Download state-electricity-rates.csv (CC BY 4.0) or browse the dataset landing.

Contact

Questions, corrections, or feedback? We welcome hearing from our users. Email us at hello@ratewatt.com.