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Why Is Electricity So Expensive in New York?

Rate data through May 2026 (the latest month EIA has published) · Updated August 21, 2026

As of May 2026, New York's average residential electricity rate is 29.93¢/kWh, the 3rd-highest of the 51 states and DC and 62% above the U.S. average of 18.44¢/kWh, per EIA data. The average monthly bill is $133.98 at 448 kWh of usage. The measured reasons are below, each with its source and date; where a claim is an association rather than a measured cost, this page says so.

Average rate, May 2026

29.93¢

per kWh; U.S. average 18.44¢

Average bill

$133.98

at 448 kWh/mo (U.S.: $135.70 at 736 kWh)

Change, 12 months

+12.1%

U.S. average: +6.2%

Change, 10 years

+69%

17.71¢ (May 2016) → 29.93¢/kWh; U.S.: +44%

The ten-year picture

Source: EIA retail sales, residential sector, monthly (rate = revenue ÷ sales). New York detail, including the last twelve months as a table, is on the New York rates page.

What New York's electricity is made from

Source	Share of in-state generation, 2024
Natural gas	48.3%
Hydropower	21.7%
Nuclear	21.0%
Wind	4.7%
Solar (utility + rooftop)	5.9%

Computed from EIA electric-power operational data (all sectors, including small-scale solar), 2024. Shares can exceed or fall short of 100% in combination because only the largest sources are listed.

The measured drivers

One state, two very different grids

New York's statewide average hides a wide split between utilities. The table below shows the spread among the state's large utilities in the latest EIA month; the highest-rate territory pays far more per kilowatt-hour than the lowest. Downstate service territories carry dense-network delivery systems whose costs per customer differ structurally from upstate's.

Policy costs are modest by regional standards, so far

Compliance with New York's renewable standards cost the equivalent of 2.4% of the average electric bill in 2024, well below Massachusetts (11.1%) or Connecticut (5.6%) (Barbose, LBNL, RPS Status Update, 2025). Net-metered rooftop solar offsets 3.2% of retail sales, roughly a quarter of California's penetration. New York's above-average rates are longstanding rather than recently policy-driven; across all 50 states, prices in 2001 predict prices in 2025 remarkably well, and New York was expensive in 2001 too.

Current rate cases

Consolidated Edison's approved 2026 electric and gas increases and the pending NYSEG and Rochester Gas & Electric cases (temporary rates in effect since June 2026, final decisions pending) are tracked with docket links in our rate-case ledger.

The in-state spread

The state average also hides differences between utilities. Among New York's large utilities (at least 50,000 residential customers), Consolidated Edison Co-NY Inc averages 42.93¢/kWh while Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. averages 21.00¢/kWh, a ratio of 2.0× (May 2026, computed from EIA-861M). Which utility serves you matters as much as which state you live in; the New York page lists them all.

Analysis: what a 50-state comparison shows. Across all 50 states in 2025 data, the strongest cross-state correlates of high rate levels are deep net-metering penetration (New York: 3.2% of retail sales offset in 2024, per LBNL) and long memory: states that were expensive in 2001 are almost all expensive today. Higher utility-scale wind and solar shares are associated with lower average prices, and belonging to a regional wholesale market (RTO) shows no statistically significant effect. These are associations across states, not causal estimates: high prices themselves push customers toward rooftop solar, so part of the association runs in reverse. One directly measured policy cost: renewable-standard compliance equal to 2.4% of the average bill in 2024 (Barbose, LBNL, 2025).

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