Nine States Saw Electricity Prices Fall Even as the National Average Kept Climbing
The US average residential electricity rate reached 18.83 cents per kilowatt-hour in April 2026, up 7.4% from the same month a year earlier, according to EIA data reported by Electric Choice.
Not every state moved in the same direction, however. Nine states recorded a year-over-year decrease in average electricity prices between March 2025 and March 2026, according to QuickElectricity's analysis of EIA data, with Connecticut seeing the most significant correction after unusually high 2025 pricing.
Analysts point to three combined pressures driving the broader national increase: continued investment in grid modernization and weather-hardening infrastructure, surging electricity demand from AI data centers and domestic manufacturing, and a projected 13% rise in wholesale natural gas prices in 2026, per EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook.
The state-by-state divergence underscores why national averages can obscure a household's actual situation — a state seeing falling average prices can still have individual utilities or regions moving in the opposite direction.
See how a change like this affects your own numbers with the full state-by-state rate comparison.