What electric heating adds to a bill, state by state

By DueRiva · Published September 19, 2026 · Updated November 4, 2026 · Figures from data retrieved October 8, 2026

For a home heated mainly by electricity, heating adds a median of $1,180 a year to the bill in Pennsylvania and $175 in Arizona. Those are not a heater’s wattage times an average rate: each is the difference between the home’s bill with and without its heating, priced on every published plan a household can take. The heating load is what the federal residential survey measured in homes whose main heating fuel is electricity, from 843 kWh a year in California to 5,731 kWh in Ohio.

What electric heating adds to a year’s bill
State	Homes heated mainly by electricity	Heating use a year	Cheapest	Median	Dearest
Pennsylvania	26%	5,371 kWh157 homes surveyed	$967	$1,180	$1,205
Ohio	23%	5,731 kWh72 homes surveyed	$961	$1,035	$1,467
Illinois	17%	3,964 kWh78 homes surveyed	$501	$867	$1,816
Minnesota	14%	5,336 kWh41 homes surveyed	$865	$865	$870
Massachusetts	17%	2,950 kWh84 homes surveyed	$744	$831	$1,279
Washington	55%	4,824 kWh227 homes surveyed	$495	$735	$1,004
Oregon	45%	4,250 kWh134 homes surveyed	$604	$703	$812
New York	16%	2,982 kWh125 homes surveyed	$460	$617	$1,123
New Jersey	16%	2,475 kWh61 homes surveyed	$480	$539	$693
Virginia	50%	3,302 kWh216 homes surveyed	$507	$512	$517
Georgia	46%	2,910 kWh186 homes surveyed	$272	$436	$468
North Carolina	62%	3,250 kWh286 homes surveyed	$243	$401	$483
Colorado	16%	2,440 kWh48 homes surveyed	$292	$394	$399
California	20%	843 kWh211 homes surveyed	$196	$343	$437
Texas	51%	2,603 kWh492 homes surveyed	$292	$314	$364
Florida	66%	1,565 kWh443 homes surveyed	$205	$221	$247
Arizona	51%	1,480 kWh237 homes surveyed	$174	$175	$257

Added annual cost on plans any household can take, fixed charges included, taxes excluded. Heating use is the RECS 2020 mean for homes in the state whose main heating fuel is electricity, secondary electric heaters included and the fans that move the heat not; a state is left out where fewer than 30 such homes were surveyed.

Why heating is not billed at the bill’s average rate

In every state here, the cheapest plan charges less for each added heating kWh than the bill averages across all of its kWh. The fixed charge is part of that average, and it is already paid before the heating starts, so the added kWh do not carry it.

In 13 of them — Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, North Carolina, California, Texas, Florida, and Arizona — the dearest plan charges more for an added kWh than that average. On a tiered schedule the heating load lands on top of everything else the home uses, in the highest band it reaches, and on a time-of-use schedule it is billed at whatever the hours cost.

What an added kWh of heating costs
State	Added kWh, cheapest to dearest plan	Whole bill’s average
Pennsylvania	18.0¢ to 22.4¢	23.3¢
Ohio	16.8¢ to 25.6¢	20.2¢
Illinois	12.6¢ to 45.8¢	23.9¢
Minnesota	16.2¢ to 16.3¢	17.0¢
Massachusetts	25.2¢ to 43.4¢	29.4¢
Washington	10.3¢ to 20.8¢	16.7¢
Oregon	14.2¢ to 19.1¢	18.2¢
New York	15.4¢ to 37.6¢	25.9¢
New Jersey	19.4¢ to 28.0¢	23.8¢
Virginia	15.4¢ to 15.7¢	16.8¢
Georgia	9.3¢ to 16.1¢	15.0¢
North Carolina	7.5¢ to 14.9¢	13.9¢
Colorado	12.0¢ to 16.4¢	17.3¢
California	23.3¢ to 51.8¢	40.3¢
Texas	11.2¢ to 14.0¢	13.2¢
Florida	13.1¢ to 15.8¢	14.3¢
Arizona	11.8¢ to 17.4¢	14.9¢

Per kWh. The average is the median plan’s whole bill, heating included, divided by every kWh it covers.

Heating schedules: compare the whole bill

Some utilities publish a schedule only homes heated by electricity can take. The figures above leave these out, because not every household qualifies. Whether one is worth moving to is a question about the whole bill, not about what heating adds: a home that moves to a heating schedule moves all of its consumption there.

Priced that way, for the same home, 7 of the 8 utilities that publish one charge less on the heating schedule than on their cheapest general plan. At San Diego Gas & Electric Co, the heating schedule costs more.

A year’s bill for the same heated home, on the heating schedule and off it
Utility	Cheapest heating schedule	Bill	Cheapest general plan	Bill	Difference
Duquesne Light CoPennsylvania · 10,248 kWh a year	Residential Service Heating	$2,298	Residential Service	$2,454	−$157
PECO Energy CoPennsylvania · 10,248 kWh a year	Residential Heating Service (RH)	$2,217	Residential Service (R)	$2,378	−$161
Commonwealth Edison CoIllinois · 8,451 kWh a year	BES - Residential Multi Family With Electric Space Heat Delivery Class	$999	BES - Residential Single Family Without Electric Space Heat Delivery Class	$1,302	−$304
Northern States Power Co - MinnesotaMinnesota · 9,331 kWh a year	Residential Service - Underground Electric Space Heating (A03)	$1,369	Residential Service - Overhead Standard (A01)	$1,584	−$215
NSTAR Electric CompanyMassachusetts · 7,237 kWh a year	South Shore, Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard Residential Space Heating R-3 BS (86)	$1,818	Greater Boston Residential R-1 (A1)	$1,915	−$98
Public Service Elec & Gas CoNew Jersey · 8,304 kWh a year	RHS - Residential Heating Service	$1,853	RLM - Residential Load Management (TOU)	$1,976	−$124
Duke Energy Carolinas, LLCNorth Carolina · 12,498 kWh a year	RE (Residential Electric Water Heating and Space Conditioning)	$1,683	RS (Residential Service)	$1,762	−$79
San Diego Gas & Electric CoCalifornia · 6,481 kWh a year	TOU-ELEC (DOMESTIC TIME-OF-USE FOR HOUSEHOLDS WITH ELECTRIC VEHICLES, ENERGY STORAGE, OR ELECTRIC HEAT PUMPS)	$3,097	TOU-DR-1 Coastal Baseline Region	$2,973	+$124

The home is the state’s: the rest of its consumption plus its heating load, priced as the whole annual bill on the utility’s own plans. A minus sign means the heating schedule costs less. Schedules for a separately metered water heater are left out: they serve an appliance, not a house.

What these figures assume

The consumption is spread evenly across the year. Real heating use is concentrated in winter, and on a schedule with seasonal prices or monthly tiers that changes where the heating kWh are billed — in a direction that depends on the schedule, so nothing here is adjusted either way.

The rest of the home is the state’s mean household consumption less the heating load, and never less than zero. The cost-to-run page prices the same heating load in every state beside every other appliance, on the cheapest, median and dearest plan a household can take.

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How this page was made

Every figure here is computed when the site is built, from the records named below, by the same code that fills the state, utility and cost-to-run pages this guide links to. When those records are refreshed, the figures change with them; the words around them do not, which is why no sentence here states a direction the data has not been checked for.

The methodology page sets out what the rate engine assumes and where its figures stop being reliable.