Pa. Electric Costs Rise 14.6% Over Past Year

The average cost of electricity in Pennsylvania has risen 14.6% over the past year, a new report from the state Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) found, driven by rapidly rising demand that is raising the cost of wholesale power.

The report uses the most recent “price to compare” calculated in June for each electric utility for default electric service to help residential customers shop for the best rate for power suppliers. The PTC includes only generation and transmission costs, and not utility distribution and maintenance costs. The IFO then calculates a weighted average for residential customers statewide.

Electric costs have risen more than 10% in each six-month PTC period since June 2025. From June to November 2025, prices rose 15.6%; from December 2025 to May 2026 an increase of 17.9%, and from June to November 2026, up 11.9%. For the year June 2026-June 2027 the cost is up 14.6%.

“The generation and transmission components of the PTC are impacted by the wholesale price of power, which is the real-time price paid by utilities and retail utility suppliers to purchase power from generators in the PJM grid,” the report explains.

PJM Interconnection operates the electric transmission grid for 13 states, including Pennsylvania, and has seen demand rapidly accelerate in the past several years primarily due to the proliferation of data centers while it has struggled to modernize its regulations to bring adequate new power generation online. The organization is increasingly under pressure from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and state governors to rein in rising prices for residential customers and make sure data center operators are paying their fair share for adding new generation and upgrading grid infrastructure.

The IFO report also noted that Monitoring Analytics, the independent market monitor for PJM, determined that the average price for wholesale power in the PJM grid rose 48.3% in 2025 from the prior year, and is up another 75.5% in the first quarter of 2026.

The average monthly electric bill, including all charges, in the state for a typical residential household rose to $257 per month in 2026 from $191 five years earlier, an increase of 35%.

This report comes several months after the IFO released an analysis showing that electricity rates across the PJM regional grid have risen sharply over the past eight years, and Pennsylvania customers have seen the biggest increase.

The research brief by the state Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) determined that average prices for Pennsylvania residents increased by 46.1% between 2018 and 2025, compared to 40.1% for Ohio, 39.1% for Virginia and 41% for all other Mid-Atlantic states in the PJM region.