All data comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistical agency of the Department of Energy. RateWatt's price surfaces use EIA's retail-sales API, whose source lineage includes mandatory utility surveys; generation surfaces use separate EIA generation series. RateWatt is not affiliated with the EIA.

RateWatt shows statewide average retail electricity prices. Your actual bill reflects your specific utility's rates, which may be higher or lower than the state average. Your bill also includes distribution charges, metering fees, taxes, and other line items that vary by utility and rate plan. For your exact rate, check your utility's rate schedule or your monthly statement.

Residential rates apply to homes and apartments. Commercial rates apply to businesses, offices, and retail establishments. Industrial rates apply to large-scale manufacturing and industrial facilities, which typically pay the lowest rates because they use electricity in very large volumes and can shift usage to off-peak hours. The all-sector average is a revenue-weighted blend.

RateWatt refreshes from the EIA retail-sales API and keeps annual and recent monthly observations separate. Annual comparisons use the latest complete annual period in the database; current-period and seasonality surfaces may use the newer monthly layer. Each data page displays the period it actually uses.

The generation mix shows the percentage of a state's total electricity generation that came from each energy source (natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, etc.) during the reporting year. It reflects utility-scale power plants as reported to the EIA. Small-scale distributed generation (like rooftop solar) may be under-counted in some states.

Electricity prices differ due to the fuel mix used to generate power (natural gas, coal, and nuclear have different costs), the cost of transmission and distribution infrastructure, state utility regulations and tax policies, local labor and construction costs, weather (which affects heating/cooling demand), and proximity to fuel sources. States with abundant hydropower (like Washington) or high nuclear shares tend to have lower prices.

No. Historical prices on RateWatt are nominal (not inflation-adjusted), meaning they reflect the actual cents-per-kWh charged in each year. This matches how utilities report prices and how customers experience them on their bills. To compare electricity costs over time in real terms, you would need to adjust for CPI inflation separately.

No. The EIA data used by RateWatt reports average annual retail prices across all rate structures within each sector. Time-of-use rates, demand charges, and tiered pricing structures are not broken out separately. If you are on a time-of-use plan, your peak rates may be significantly higher and off-peak rates lower than the state average shown.