Kentucky's Electric Rates Lowest in the Nation
7/24/01


Kentucky has the lowest electric rates in the nation according to the latest figures from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Energy Department estimates for the first three months of this year put Kentucky’s average residential rate at 5.2 cents a kilowatt-hour. Idaho has the next lowest rate at 5.3 cents followed by Washington at 5.4 cents. The average for the whole United States is 7.96 cents a kilowatt-hour.

Those are residential rates. Kentucky also has the lowest rates if you average all classes of rates—residential, commercial, and industrial. In addition, Kentucky’s position as having the lowest rates is likely to get even stronger, with still more rates increases expected in the western United States.

Experts have been predicting for months that as a result of the California electricity crisis, rates in the West would rise, making Kentucky’s rates the lowest in the nation. These latest numbers seem to bear that out.

For years Kentucky’s rates have been among the lowest in the nation for several reasons, especially its reliance on low-cost, local coal fields for nearly all its power. The only cheaper rates have been in the Pacific Northwest, where an abundance of hydroelectric dams made that part of the country the low-rate leader.

But as California struggled with energy supply and demand problems during the past year, rates rose throughout the region, while rates in Kentucky remained relatively stable.
For example, Idaho, which had the lowest residential rates in the nation in 1999, saw them increase 36 percent by the first quarter of this year. Rates in Wyoming, which had the second-lowest rates in the nation in 1999, fell to fifth place by the first three months of 2001, as a result of a 55 percent increase in its average residential rate.

The latest information about 2001 residential kilowatt hour rates per state can be found by clicking here to the Department of Energy's Estimated U.S. Utility Average Revenue Table.

Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives, Inc. 4515 Bishop Lane * Louisville, KY  40218 502-451-2430 * FAX: 502-459-3209 Terms of Use