Homes pay 23% more for power from investor-owned utilities

Who runs your electric company may affect your bill. In 2025, homes paid 17.8 cents per kilowatt-hour at investor-owned utilities. Public utilities charged 14.5 cents. Co-ops charged 14.1 cents. A kilowatt-hour is the unit your bill uses to measure electricity. The gap between investor-owned and public works out to about 23%.

What changed

The gap has grown. Since 2020, prices at investor-owned utilities rose 34%. Public utility prices rose 19%. Inflation over the same period was 24%. So public prices rose more slowly than prices in general, while investor-owned prices rose faster.

The figures come from a US Energy Information Administration annual survey of utilities, covering homes that buy both supply and delivery from their utility. The inflation comparison uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What is not known

The material does not explain why the gap exists. Ownership type is linked to price, but that does not prove it is the cause. Other factors may play a part. The source notes, for example, that some states get most of their power from dams, including Washington, Vermont, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Alaska and South Dakota. The dataset also covers each state and reliability, measured in minutes without power, but those figures are not detailed here.

What to do

• Check your bill to see who your utility is and how it is owned.
• Compare your price per kilowatt-hour with the 2025 averages above.
• Remember that these are averages, so your own rate may differ.