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Dive Brief:
U.S. electric rates increased 2.6% from 2024 to 2025 after adjusting for inflation, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said this month in a 2026 update to an influential journal article researchers published last year on retail electricity price trends and drivers.
Since 2019, nominal residential electric rates rose by 33%, commercial rates grew 26% and industrial rates increased by 27%, widening what LNBL described as a persistent gap between residential and C&I pricing. But while residential electricity pricing outpaced overall inflation, it rose more slowly than residential natural gas rates, LNBL said in its report, which was prepared by The Brattle Group.
While inflation-adjusted national average retail electricity prices are 3% higher now than they were in 2019, they are actually 6% lower than in 2010, and total electric bills as a fraction of income are near all-time lows, LBNL said. Those national averages veil significant price differences between regions.
