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Energy Profile

Our Methodology

Energy Profile provides electricity rates, generation mix, and renewable energy data for all 50 US states and the District of Columbia. All data is sourced from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Data Sources

All data on Energy Profile comes from the EIA Open Data API v2, the official data portal of the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The EIA is the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information.

We use two primary EIA datasets:

  • Electricity Retail Sales, Residential, commercial, and industrial electricity prices by state, reported in cents per kilowatt-hour (¢/kWh). Source: EIA Electric Power Monthly (Form EIA-861M).
  • Electric Power Operational Data, Electricity generation by fuel type (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, other) for each state. Source: Form EIA-923 monthly generation reports.

Data Processing

Our automated data pipeline fetches the latest available data from the EIA API. The process includes:

  1. Price collection, We retrieve the most recent annual electricity prices for residential, commercial, and industrial sectors for each state.
  2. Generation mix calculation, We retrieve electricity generation volumes by fuel type for each state and calculate the percentage contribution of each source (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, other).
  3. Renewable energy calculation, Renewable percentage includes hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and waste energy generation.
  4. Rankings, States are ranked by residential electricity rate (cheapest to most expensive) and by renewable energy percentage.

All percentages are rounded to one decimal place. Prices are reported exactly as provided by the EIA, in cents per kilowatt-hour.

Update Frequency

Data is refreshed periodically as the EIA publishes new reports. Electricity prices are typically updated monthly (via the Electric Power Monthly) with annual aggregates available each spring. Generation data follows a similar schedule.

Last data refresh: April 12, 2026.

Known Limitations

  • Annual aggregates, Electricity prices shown are annual averages and may not reflect seasonal variation or real-time spot prices.
  • Bundled utilities, Some states have restructured electricity markets where prices include both generation and transmission costs, while others separate them. This can affect direct state-to-state price comparisons.
  • Generation vs. consumption, Generation mix shows what each state produces, not necessarily what it consumes. States import and export electricity across state lines.
  • Behind-the-meter solar, Rooftop and distributed solar installations may not be fully captured in utility-scale generation data, understating solar contributions in some states.
  • Data lag, EIA data publication has an inherent lag of several months. The most recent data available may be from the prior year.

No Scoring or Grades

Energy Profile does not assign subjective scores, grades, or ratings to states. We present the EIA data directly so users can make their own comparisons and conclusions. Rankings are based solely on the underlying data values.

How to Cite This Data

If you use data from Energy Profile in research, articles, or other work, please cite:

Energy Profile. "[Page Title]." energyprofile.org, 2026. Accessed [date]. Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The underlying EIA data is in the public domain as a work of the U.S. government. Energy Profile's presentation, analysis, and compilation of this data is original work.