The average electric bill in Pennsylvania was about $145 a month as of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). That lands almost exactly on the national average, but the way Pennsylvania gets there is the reverse of a high-usage state like Texas. Pennsylvania homes do not use much electricity by national standards. They pay a higher-than-average rate for what they do use.
Short answer: The average Pennsylvania household paid about $145.17 a month for electricity in 2024 (EIA), based on roughly 817 kWh of usage at an all-in rate of 17.77 cents per kWh. The national average that year was about $144 a month, on 865 kWh at 16.5 cents per kWh. So Pennsylvania uses less electricity than the typical U.S. home but pays more per unit, and the two roughly cancel out at the bill line.
That distinction is not trivia. It changes what actually lowers your bill. Below is the sourced breakdown, the honest version of what moves a Pennsylvania bill, and the one part of it you can genuinely shop.
What the average Pennsylvania electric bill actually is
The figure to anchor on is $145.17 a month, the average residential bill in Pennsylvania as of 2024 (EIA). For comparison, the national average that year was about $144. A typical Pennsylvania home paid within a dollar of the typical U.S. home.
Treat that number as a midpoint, not a target. An average flattens enormous variation. A one-bedroom apartment in a mild October and a four-bedroom house running central air in August are both "Pennsylvania," and their bills are nowhere near each other. Your own bill depends on your home size, your insulation, how you heat, how you set the thermostat, and which supply rate you are on. The average is useful as a benchmark, not a prediction.
One important point of clarity before the breakdown. That 17.77-cent all-in rate is the total price per kilowatt-hour, and it has two parts: the delivery charge your utility bills to move electricity to your home, and the supply (generation) charge for the electricity itself. Most readers do not realize those are separate line items, and the difference between them is the whole story of what you can and cannot control. We will come back to it.
A note on vintage. EIA full-year data lags by a year or more, so 2024 is the most recent complete annual figure available. Rates drift, but the structural picture below has held for years.
What a bill looks like at different usage levels
The single biggest swing factor in any bill is how much you use. The table below applies Pennsylvania's 2024 all-in rate of 17.77 cents per kWh (EIA) to common monthly usage bands. These are all-in figures (supply plus delivery), and they are illustrative estimates meant to show how usage drives the bill, not official segment averages.
| Monthly usage | Approx. all-in monthly bill (at 17.77¢/kWh, EIA 2024) |
|---|---|
| 500 kWh (small apartment) | about $89 |
| 817 kWh (PA average) | about $145 |
| 1,000 kWh (mid-size home) | about $178 |
| 1,500 kWh (larger home) | about $267 |
| 2,000 kWh (large or all-electric home) | about $355 |
The 817-kWh row is the statewide average. Everything above and below it is the same arithmetic at a different volume. A home that uses 2,000 kWh a month is not paying a different rate than one using 500; it is simply using four times as much electricity. That is why the same family can see a mild spring bill near $90 and an August or January bill well over $250 without anything being "wrong" with the meter. (Pennsylvania's swing runs both ways: summer air conditioning in the east, electric heat in colder months across much of the state.) If your bill has jumped and you are trying to find out why, our guide on why your electric bill is so high walks through the usual causes, and you can model your own home directly with the electricity cost calculator.
What actually drives your bill: usage, rate, and the supply/delivery split
A Pennsylvania bill has two levers. The first is usage, the kilowatt-hours themselves, which is what the table above turns. The second is the rate, the price per kilowatt-hour. Pennsylvania's distinctive feature is that the rate side does more of the work here than it does nationally: at 17.77 cents per kWh in 2024 (EIA), Pennsylvania sat above the national 16.5 cents, while its 817 kWh of usage came in below the national 865. The state lands at the national bill average through a high rate, not heavy consumption.
That puts a spotlight on the rate, and the rate is where the supply/delivery split matters. Of your all-in price, the supply portion is the larger share, and delivery is roughly a third of the total. You can see the rough shape of it in the numbers: across Pennsylvania utilities the supply rate that the Price to Compare tracks runs about 11.6 to 14.1 cents per kWh as of June 2026, which is most of the 17.77-cent all-in figure, leaving delivery as the remainder.
One honest caveat on that comparison. The all-in 17.77 cents is an EIA 2024 figure, and the supply rates above are the June 2026 benchmark, so the two come from different years. Do not subtract one from the other and call the difference your exact delivery charge; treat it as the approximate split, not precise arithmetic. The point that holds regardless of vintage is the shape: supply is the bigger slice, delivery is real but smaller, and only one of those two is shoppable.
Why a Pennsylvania bill swings so much by season
The $145 average hides months that run well above it and months that run well below, because Pennsylvania has real weather at both ends of the calendar. Summers in the southeast and the cities pull air conditioning loads up through July and August. Winters across most of the state drive heating, and for homes with electric heat, heat pumps, or electric backup, the coldest months can rival or beat the summer peak. The result is a usage curve with two humps, not the single summer spike a Sun Belt state sees.
That seasonality is a usage story, not a rate one. Your supply rate does not rise in August; your kilowatt-hours do. The same logic from the usage table applies: a home that drifts from 800 kWh in a mild month to 1,600 kWh in a deep cold snap is not being overcharged, it is simply running more electricity through the same rate. The fix for a seasonal spike lives on the usage side, which is exactly why an annual average is a poor guide to any single month's bill.
The part you can shop, and the part you can't
Here is the wedge that most Pennsylvania households miss. The delivery half of your rate is set by your utility, and you do not choose your utility. Your address assigns it: PECO in the Philadelphia area, PPL across the Lehigh Valley and northeast, Duquesne Light in Pittsburgh, and Met-Ed, Penelec, Penn Power, or West Penn Power elsewhere. You cannot switch utilities, and you cannot negotiate delivery. That part of the bill is fixed for you.
The supply portion is different. Pennsylvania is a deregulated electricity market, which means you can choose who generates your power even though you cannot choose who delivers it. If you have never made that choice, you are on your utility's default supply rate, the Price to Compare. That benchmark is what a competitive supplier has to beat to save you money. As of June 1, 2026, it runs 11.572 cents per kWh for PECO, 13.147 for PPL, 14.14 for Duquesne Light, 13.951 for Met-Ed, 13.142 for Penelec, 13.477 for Penn Power, and 12.075 for West Penn Power. We explain how that benchmark is set, and how to read it, in the Pennsylvania Price to Compare guide, and we track each utility's current number in posts like the PECO Price to Compare update.
Be clear about what shopping does and does not do. A lower supply rate reduces the price per kWh on the supply portion of your bill only. It does not touch delivery, and it does not change how many kilowatt-hours you use. A cheaper plan on a 1,500-kWh winter home still produces a large bill, just a smaller one than the same usage at a higher supply rate. So the honest play is both levers: trim usage where you can, and make sure the supply rate you are paying is not above the Price to Compare. To see what your address qualifies for, start at the Pennsylvania electricity hub, and to translate a rate into a dollar figure for your specific home, run the electricity cost calculator.
How Pennsylvania compares to the national average
Putting the three numbers side by side makes the pattern obvious. As of 2024 (EIA), Pennsylvania averaged $145.17 a month against the U.S. $144, used 817 kWh against the national 865, and paid 17.77 cents per kWh against 16.5 nationally.
In one line: Pennsylvania is a high-rate, modest-usage state. The amount of electricity a typical home uses is a little below average, but the price per unit is high enough to pull the monthly bill right up to the national line. That is the mirror image of a place like Texas, where a low rate and heavy air-conditioning usage produce an above-average bill. And it has a practical consequence. Because more of a Pennsylvania bill is driven by the rate than by raw consumption, shopping the supply rate carries more weight here than it does in a high-usage state, where the thermostat does most of the damage. If you want to see where Pennsylvania sits in the national picture, our average electric bill by state guide ranks all fifty.
FAQ
What's the average electric bill in Pennsylvania?
The average residential electric bill in Pennsylvania was about $145.17 a month as of 2024, according to the EIA, based on roughly 817 kWh of usage at an all-in rate of 17.77 cents per kWh. That is essentially the same as the U.S. average of about $144 for the same year. Keep in mind it is a statewide average that masks wide variation by home size, season, and the supply rate you are on, so your own bill can land well above or below it.
Why is my electric bill higher than average?
Usually one of two reasons, and they call for different fixes. The first is usage: a larger home, electric heat, or a hot summer can push your kilowatt-hours well above the state's 817-kWh average, and more usage means a bigger bill at any rate. The second is your rate: if you are on a competitive supply plan that sits above your utility's Price to Compare, or a variable rate that has climbed, you are paying more per kWh than you need to. Note that this only applies to the supply portion of your bill; the delivery charge is set by your utility and is the same whether or not you shop. Our guide on why your electric bill is so high breaks down both sides.
How much can I save by switching suppliers?
It depends on the gap between your current supply rate and the best available plan, and on how much you use, but be precise about what switching changes. Shopping lowers the price per kWh on the supply portion only, which is the part the Price to Compare benchmarks (roughly 11.6 to 14.1 cents per kWh across Pennsylvania utilities as of June 2026). It does not lower your delivery charge, which the utility sets, and it does not reduce your usage. So the savings are real but bounded: they come from beating your supply rate, not from your whole bill. To estimate the dollar impact for your home, compare your current supply rate against the Price to Compare for your utility and run the numbers in the electricity cost calculator.