Not everyone lives in a place where electricity suppliers compete in deregulated electricity markets, so it is possible that your only option may be to move to someplace with cheaper electricity. To get an idea of how much electricity prices vary from state to state, take a look at this table that ranks the states by electricity prices averaged across all sectors. You can also find tables that that will rank the states by prices for residential electricity, business electricity, and industrial electricity.
The state with the cheapest electricity, averaged over all sectors, is Wyoming. I would love to attribute the low electricity prices to its abundant wind energy resources, but the truth is that the low prices there are mostly due to the abundance of cheap coal, which is used to produce 95% of Wyoming’s electricity. Ditto for numbers 3 through 5 on the list, West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Dakota, which all get at least 93% of their electricity from coal. As a huge advocate for renewable energy, I’m starting to get depressed by this list!
Things get a bit better when we look at number 2, Idaho, which gets 79% of its electricity from hydropower, and less than 1% from coal. It is true that abundant hydropower resources also tend to result in cheap electricity prices, so, if you want cheap power from a renewable energy source, look for a state with lots of hydropower. Other examples are Washington (6th cheapest electricity, 74% from hydropower), South Dakota (10th cheapest, 48% from hydropower), and Oregon (14th cheapest, 61% from hydropower).
However, it is true that the rest of the top 15 have coal as their largest electricity source, with one exception: Louisiana. Louisiana gets only 25% of its electricity from coal, while 47% comes from natural gas and 18% comes from nuclear power. I can’t explain why Louisiana has such cheap electricity, but I can say that natural gas has a smaller carbon footprint per kilowatt-hour of electricity, which is a plus for those of you who care about global warming!
Before we leave the subject of electricity prices by state, let’s consider which states have the most expensive electricity. On the top of that list is Hawaii, which produces 77% of its electricity from very expensive, imported petroleum. I grew up in Hawaii, and I promise you that it is a beautiful place to live, but don’t go looking for cheap electricity (or anything else cheap, for that matter) there! Besides Hawaii, a lot of states in the Northeast have relatively expensive electricity; they tend to get a small percentage of their electricity from coal, and more from natural gas or nuclear power. Alaska (6th most expensive) and California (10th most expensive) also have relatively expensive electricity, with most coming from natural gas. I am not saying that high electricity prices are a bad thing, but, if your goal is to find cheap electricity, these are not the states that you want to move to.