Commercial Electricity Rates by State (2026): Cheapest to Most Expensive

Updated on October 28, 2026

15 min read

Commercial electricity rates range from 7.19¢ per kWh in North Dakota to 38.18¢ in Hawaii, against a US commercial average of 12.75¢ — and in nineteen jurisdictions a business can shop that supply rate rather than accept it. This is the full table of commercial electricity rates by state, plus which markets are actually open to you.

By Christopher Burg • Last updated September 25, 2026.

Commercial electricity rates vary widely by state. The average U.S. business pays about 12.75¢ per kWh, but commercial electricity rates range more than 5× — from 7.19¢ in North Dakota to 38.18¢ in Hawaii. This tracker ranks the commercial electricity rate in every state using the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, flags where businesses can shop for a lower supply rate, and explains why commercial electricity rates differ so much from one state to the next.

Illinois & ComEd: why moderate rates may not stay that way

Why commercial electricity rates vary so much by state

Four forces drive the 5× spread in commercial electricity rates. Fuel mix matters most — states rich in natural gas, hydro, or wind (North Dakota, Washington, Texas) generate power cheaply, while states dependent on imported fuel (Hawaii burns oil) pay a premium. Transmission and geography add cost in remote or islanded grids like Alaska and Hawaii. Policy and climate goals lift rates where utilities are funding renewable buildouts and grid hardening, which is part of why California and the Northeast top the table. Finally, market structure plays a role: in deregulated states, competition among suppliers can hold commercial electricity rates down, while in fully regulated states a single utility sets the price. Understanding which of these applies to your state tells you whether shopping will actually move your bill.

Commercial electricity rates by state (ranked cheapest to most expensive)

⚡ = deregulated retail-choice market for commercial customers. Prices are average commercial-sector rates; your actual rate depends on utility, supplier, usage, and contract.

Cheapest and most expensive states, explained

The cheapest commercial electricity rates cluster in the Plains and energy-producing South: North Dakota (7.19¢), Nebraska (8.39¢), and Texas (8.55¢) pair abundant local generation with fewer imported-fuel costs — and Texas adds fierce retail competition on its ERCOT grid (ERCOT). At the other end, Hawaii (38.18¢) pays nearly 3× the national average because it burns imported oil for much of its power, while California (25.54¢) and the New England states carry high rates from wildfire/grid-hardening costs and aggressive clean-energy mandates. For a multi-site business, these gaps mean the same operation can face wildly different commercial electricity rates depending on where each location sits.

Deregulated vs regulated: how it affects your commercial electricity rates

In the 15 retail-choice states marked ⚡, businesses aren’t locked into the default utility — you can compare competitive suppliers and lock a fixed rate on the supply portion of the bill. That matters most when grid-investment pressure (like ComEd’s) points delivery charges upward: even if you can’t control delivery, you can hedge supply. In regulated states, your levers are efficiency, demand management, and rate-schedule optimization rather than supplier choice. Either way, knowing your state’s status is the first step to controlling your commercial electricity rates.

Data-center demand is reshaping commercial electricity rates

The biggest force on future commercial electricity rates is load growth. After two decades of flat demand, data centers, EV charging, and electrified heating are driving the fastest load increases in a generation — and utilities are filing multi-billion-dollar grid plans (ComEd’s $15.3B is one of several nationwide) to keep up. Because those investments are recovered through delivery charges over years, businesses in high-growth grids should expect upward pressure on commercial electricity rates even where wholesale power stays cheap. Locking in supply terms and improving efficiency now is the hedge.

How to lower your commercial electricity rates

Start with the biggest lever your state allows: in deregulated markets, shop competitive suppliers and lock a fixed rate before renewals; in regulated markets, audit your rate schedule and shift usage off peak. Everywhere, reduce demand charges with efficiency upgrades, and re-quote at every contract expiration — the supplier mix and pricing change constantly. For multi-site operators, benchmark each location against the state averages above so you know which sites are overpaying.

Methodology

Rates are the average price of electricity to commercial customers by state, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), “Electricity: Sales, Revenue, and Average Price” (latest full-year data). We report EIA’s figures unchanged, rank them, and compare each state to the national commercial average. This is a living tracker — we refresh these commercial electricity rates when EIA publishes newer figures. State grid-plan details are drawn from utility filings (e.g., ComEd with the Illinois Commerce Commission).

Commercial electricity rates: the questions people ask, answered

What owners, controllers and facility managers type when they are checking the rate, in their own words, answered as of October 25, 2026.

What is the average commercial electricity rate in the U.S., and how does it compare with industrial rates?

The national commercial average in the EIA full-year data this page ranks is 12.75 cents per kWh. Industrial customers pay less, about 8 cents per kWh nationally, because they take power at higher voltage, in larger blocks and with flatter load; a factory in Kentucky or Alabama typically pays 6 to 8 cents while the commercial rate in the same state is 11.5 to 13.6 cents. EIA publishes monthly state-by-state commercial and industrial prices in its Electric Power Monthly (Table 5.6.A), released about two months after the data month, so June 2026 figures appeared in late August 2026; this page tracks the full-year series and is refreshed when EIA publishes the next annual set.

How much does electricity cost a business per month?

The average U.S. commercial account uses roughly 6,000 kWh a month, which at the 12.75-cent national average is about $770 before demand charges, delivery riders and taxes. A small office or storefront on 1,500 to 3,000 kWh runs $200 to $400 in a cheap state such as Nebraska or Texas and $400 to $800 in California; a restaurant or small manufacturer on 15,000 to 30,000 kWh pays $1,500 to $4,000 in most states and double that in California or Hawaii. Demand charges, billed on your peak kilowatt draw rather than kWh, can add 20 to 40 percent to a commercial bill and are the first thing to attack.

What are commercial electricity rates in Colorado, Kentucky, Nebraska, Georgia and Tennessee?

From the table above: Colorado 11.71 cents per kWh (rank 27, about 1 cent under the U.S. average, Xcel and Black Hills territory, regulated), Kentucky 11.50 cents (rank 25, with LG&E/KU and Kentucky Power), Nebraska 8.39 cents (rank 2, entirely public power with no retail choice), Georgia 10.87 cents (rank 21, Georgia Power and the EMCs), and Tennessee 12.05 cents (rank 30, TVA distributors). None of these five states lets a business choose a competitive supplier, so the lever is the rate schedule, demand management and efficiency rather than shopping.

What are commercial electricity rates in California, including Los Angeles and Sun Valley?

California’s statewide commercial average is 25.54 cents per kWh, rank 50, double the national figure, driven by PG&E, SCE and SDG&E wildfire and grid costs. Sun Valley and the rest of the City of Los Angeles are served by LADWP, a municipal utility whose commercial rates run below the investor-owned utilities; LADWP bills on time-of-use schedules with separate demand charges, so the effective per-kWh cost depends heavily on when and how steadily the business draws power. California allows direct access (competitive supply) for commercial and industrial customers only, and the program is capped, so most small businesses stay on the utility tariff.

What are commercial electricity rates in Hawaii County and the rest of Hawaii?

Hawaii’s commercial average is 38.18 cents per kWh, the highest in the country, because most generation still burns imported fuel. Hawaii County (the Big Island), served by Hawaii Electric Light, has historically priced above the state average, while Oahu runs below it; rates move month to month with fuel costs through an energy cost adjustment, so a Big Island business should budget above 40 cents and watch the monthly adjustment line on the bill. On-site solar with storage pays back faster in Hawaii than anywhere else in the U.S.

Is the cost of electricity going up for commercial buildings?

Yes, and faster than inflation in most regions. Utilities are filing multi-billion-dollar grid plans to serve data centers, EV charging and electrified heating after two decades of flat demand, and those costs are recovered through delivery charges for years. Expect commercial rates to rise fastest in grids with large data-center pipelines (Virginia, Georgia, Texas, Ohio, Arizona) and in states with wildfire or storm-hardening costs (California, the Gulf Coast). In deregulated states a business can lock a fixed supply price for 24 to 36 months before the next increase; in regulated states the defenses are demand-charge management, efficiency and on-site generation.

Is NRG industrial electricity cheaper than Engie, and which commercial supplier has the lowest rate?

There is no standing answer. NRG, Engie, Constellation, Shell Energy and the other commercial suppliers price each quote from the wholesale forward curve for your utility zone, your load profile and the term length on the day you ask, so one supplier wins a 12-month quote and another wins a 36-month quote at the same address. The way to find the cheapest is to collect quotes on the same day for the same term and product (fixed all-in, including capacity and transmission), then compare the price per kWh with the pass-through clauses read closely. The business shopping section below explains how that works state by state.

Also searched as: commercial electricity rates, commercial electricity rates by state, industrial electricity rates, commercial electricity cost per kWh, electricity cost for business per month and EIA commercial electricity prices. They all mean the figures on this page.

Frequently asked questions

What are commercial electricity rates?
Commercial electricity rates are the average price businesses pay per kilowatt-hour (kWh), blending the cost of generation/supply and delivery. The U.S. commercial average is about 12.75¢/kWh, versus 7.19¢ in North Dakota and 38.18¢ in Hawaii.

Which states have the cheapest commercial electricity rates?
North Dakota (7.19¢), Nebraska (8.39¢), Texas (8.55¢), Virginia (8.72¢), and Oklahoma (8.92¢) have the lowest commercial electricity rates.

Which states have the most expensive commercial electricity rates?
Hawaii (38.18¢), California (25.54¢), Alaska (21.57¢), Connecticut (21.21¢), and Rhode Island (21.09¢) have the highest commercial electricity rates.

Can businesses shop for lower commercial electricity rates?
Yes, in deregulated retail-choice states (marked ⚡), commercial customers can shop competitive suppliers for the supply portion of the bill. In regulated states, the local utility is the only option.

What are commercial electricity rates in Illinois?
About 11.81¢/kWh, below the U.S. average, though ComEd’s proposed $15.3 billion grid plan signals upward pressure on delivery charges ahead.

Why are commercial electricity rates rising?
Data-center demand, electrification, and large grid-investment plans are pushing delivery costs up in several states, even where generation prices are stable.

Where a business can actually shop — and why the cheap states aren’t the choice states

A rate table only tells you half of what a business needs. The other half is whether you are allowed to do anything about the number. Nineteen US jurisdictions let a commercial customer leave the utility’s default service and sign a contract with a competitive supplier. In the other thirty-two states plus the territories, the rate in the table is the rate, and the only lever left is using less.

The counterintuitive part: choice does not mean cheap

Eleven of the nineteen choice jurisdictions sit above the national commercial average. Connecticut businesses pay 21.21¢, Rhode Island 21.09¢, Massachusetts 20.90¢ and California 25.54¢ — all of them markets where a company is free to shop, and all of them well above the 12.75¢ US average. Meanwhile North Dakota, at 7.19¢, is the cheapest commercial power in the country and has no retail choice at all.

So deregulation is not a discount. What it actually buys you is control over the supply half of the bill. The delivery charges are set by the utility and regulated either way; the energy charge is the part a contract can move. In a state where commercial power runs 21¢, a supply component you can negotiate is worth far more than it is in a state where the all-in rate is already 8¢.

That inverts the usual advice. The businesses with the most to gain from shopping are not the ones in cheap states — they are the ones in expensive choice states, where the gap between default service and a well-timed contract is measured in real money every month.

The three tiers of commercial choice

Businesses already pay less than households — by a lot

Across every choice market, commercial customers pay below the residential rate in the same state, because they take power at higher voltage and flatter load. The size of that discount varies more than most operators realise:

• Texas: 8.55¢ commercial against 14.94¢ residential — a business pays 42.8% less than the house next door.
• Pennsylvania: 11.03¢ against 17.77¢, a 37.9% discount.
• Ohio: 10.66¢ against 15.99¢, 33.3% less.
• Washington, D.C.: 17.07¢ against 17.71¢ — a discount of just 3.6%, the narrowest in the country.

If you are benchmarking your bill against what you pay at home, you are using the wrong number. Benchmark against the commercial average for your state, then against what a contract can do on top of that.

What happens when you check a real business address

State averages are a planning tool, not a quote. A commercial contract is priced off three things a table cannot know: your utility territory, your annual consumption, and your load shape — when in the day you actually draw power. A restaurant and a warehouse on the same street, both at 20,000 kWh a year, will be quoted differently because one of them peaks at 6pm.

That is why commercial energy does not work like the residential flow. There is no instant sign-up. A supplier or broker wants a recent bill, the meter number and usually twelve months of interval data, and prices a term against the forward curve on the day. The number moves week to week.

So the useful sequence is: find out from the table whether your state permits shopping at all, confirm your utility territory, then get a real quote against your own usage. Our deregulated energy states map covers which markets are open, and our business electricity guide walks through the contract terms worth reading before signing.

Keep going

• Business electricity rates Texas — EIA averages, the one public small-business EFL, TDU demand charges by utility and 4CP
• Business electricity: compare commercial plans & rates
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• New York energy suppliers compared
• Business electricity providers compared: who sells commercial power in 2026
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Sources

State-level commercial rates on this page come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Electric Sales, Revenue and Average Price release, Form EIA-861, 2024 Total Electric Industry table — the commercial-sector column, where the US average is 12.75¢ per kWh against 16.48¢ residential. For the current national trend, EIA’s Electricity Monthly Update put the US commercial average at 14.53¢ per kWh in July 2026, up 3.4% year over year, so treat the 2024 state figures as a ranking of relative position rather than a quote for today.

Retail-choice status is current to September 2026 and reflects each state’s restructuring rules, including Virginia’s HB 921 expansion of non-residential access above 5 MW in July 2026, Michigan’s 10% cap, and the suspension of residential direct access in California. Businesses in Texas can verify any supplier’s licence and compare offers through the Public Utility Commission of Texas at Power to Choose.

• U.S. EIA — Electricity: Sales, Revenue, and Average Price
• ComEd — Illinois utility & Illinois Commerce Commission (grid-plan filing)
• ERCOT — Texas grid operator
• WTTW News — ComEd $15.3B grid plan