With energy costs likely to be high during what could be the hottest summer on record, the personal-finance website WalletHub recently released its report on “Energy Costs by State in 2024.”
The survey offers insight into how Americans’ energy bills are affected by where they live and how much they use.
WalletHub compared the average monthly energy bills in each of the 50 states using a special formula that accounts for the following residential energy types: electricity, natural gas, motor fuel and home heating oil.
The states with the highest energy costs are Wyoming ($1,591), North Dakota ($840), Iowa ($798), Montana ($787), Minnesota ($782), Massachusetts ($759), Connecticut ($750), Alaska ($716), South Dakotta ($709) and Virgini ($694).
The lowest energy costs states are California ($476), Louisianna ($474), Colorado ($470), Florida ($462), Mississippi ($457), Nebraska ($453), Texas ($437), Kansas ($436), Arizona ($400) and New Mexico ($376).
The dollar amount listed beside each state above reflects its average monthly energy bill.
Best versus worst takeaways include:
- Hawaii has the lowest average monthly consumption of electricity per consumer, which is 3.1 times lower than in Louisiana, the highest.
- Washington has the lowest average retail price for electricity, which is 4.2 times lower than in Hawaii, the highest.
- Idaho has the lowest average residential price for natural gas, which is 7.2 times lower than in Hawaii, the highest.
- New York has the lowest average monthly motor-fuel consumption per driver, which is 2.9 times lower than in Wyoming, the highest.
- In Northeastern states, between 6 percent and 59 percent of households use heating oil to heat their homes, compared with less than 3 percent of households in the rest of the U.S.