Power For Tomorrow: 9 Of 10 States With Highest Electric Rates Are "Deregulated"; Residential Customers Paid 60% More In Deregulated States

Power for Tomorrow (PFT) which advocates, "for the benefits of well-regulated electric utilities that deliver reliable and affordable power to customers," released a report stating, "In the contiguous United States (U.S.), residential customers in deregulated electricity states paid 60.4% more on average in 2025 than residential customers in traditionally regulated states -- 23.41 cents per kilowatt-hour compared to just 14.60 cents."

Power for Tomorrow said that nine of the ten most expensive states in the contiguous U.S. for residential electricity are deregulated, while every one of the ten cheapest states relies on the traditional regulated utility model

Power for Tomorrow's list of the 10 most expensive states, including its categorization of such states as deregulated versus regulated, is below:

Power for Tomorrow said that from 2024 to 2025, residential prices in deregulated states climbed 7.4%, nearly double the 4.4% increase seen in regulated states

Power for Tomorrow said that such increase is, "the earliest sign that large load growth is not having a uniform impact across the country."

Power for Tomorrow’s report draws entirely on publicly available data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Electric Power Monthly, specifically the February 2026 release. From this monthly release, Power for Tomorrow collected full calendar-year 2025 data through the December year-to-date average, and compared it against the same period in 2024.

See the full report here