Findings · tariff snapshot 2026-08-27

Why is the July electric bill so much higher? Mostly not because of the rate

Summer bills arrive with an explanation attached: summer rates. Some utilities do charge more per kilowatt-hour in summer. But when we priced the same air-conditioned house through every month of the year at 125 US utilities, the typical July bill came out 75% higher than February’s while the price of each kilowatt-hour barely moved.

July bill vs February

1.75×

Median across the utilities we priced, for the same house with central air.

July price per kWh vs February

1.01×

The energy price itself, fixed charge excluded. At the median utility it is essentially flat.

Share of the jump due to the rate

~2%

Median. The rest is the extra electricity the air conditioning uses.

Mostly because the house uses more electricity. Our modelled house with central air uses about 1,099 kilowatt-hours in July against 597 in February — 84% more. At the median utility the price of each of those kilowatt-hours is within a percent or two of February’s, and about 2% of the higher bill is down to the rate. At 40 of 125 utilities a summer price premium of 5% or more does add noticeably to the bill; at 56 July energy costs no more per kilowatt-hour than February’s.

Two reasons a bill goes up, and why they get confused

A bill is a quantity times a price. In summer both can rise, and a bill does not say which one did. Utilities that file seasonal rates print the summer rate on the bill, so it is the obvious suspect. The quantity is less visible: it is spread across every hour the air conditioner ran, and most people have no sense of how much energy that is.

To separate the two, we priced July’s usage twice — once at July’s actual prices, once at February’s average energy price. The difference between those is what the summer rate cost. Everything else in the gap between the February and July bills is usage. Across the 125 utilities, the median answer is that the rate accounts for about 2% of the increase.

Half of these utilities (63 of 125) do write a different summer price into their default tariff. That makes the result stranger, not less so. Part of the reason is that many “seasonal” tariffs change the rate by less than a cent. Another is that tiered tariffs often have a cheaper upper block, or a larger allowance in summer, so a heavy month is billed at a lower average price. And the fixed charge, spread over twice as much energy, adds half as much to each kilowatt-hour.

Where summer electricity really does cost more

The utilities whose default plan charges at least 5% more per kilowatt-hour in July than in February, largest premium first. At these, both causes are at work.

Utility	State	July ¢/kWh	February ¢/kWh	July bill	February bill	Of the jump, due to rate
Union Electric Co	Missouri	14.5¢	10.1¢	$168	$69	$48
City of Lansing	Michigan	17.2¢	12.8¢	$213	$100	$48
Lincoln Electric System	Nebraska	7.1¢	5.3¢	$125	$79	$19
Oklahoma Gas & Electric	Arkansas	10.4¢	8.0¢	$128	$61	$27
City of La Grange	Georgia	9.0¢	7.0¢	$129	$72	$22
Salt River Project	Arizona	14.0¢	11.0¢	$174	$86	$33
Potomac Electric Power	Maryland	19.9¢	15.6¢	$235	$110	$47
MidAmerican Energy	Illinois	11.8¢	9.3¢	$139	$64	$28
Georgia Power	Georgia	17.2¢	13.5¢	$203	$94	$40
Evergy Metro	Kansas	11.3¢	9.0¢	$138	$68	$25
Pacific Gas & Electric	California	38.2¢	30.9¢	$445	$207	$81
City of Colorado Springs	Colorado	14.3¢	11.6¢	$177	$87	$30

Utilities where July energy costs at least 5% more per kWh than February energy on the default plan

At Union Electric Co the summer premium is the largest in the sample: 14.5¢ per kilowatt-hour in July against 10.1¢ in February. Even there, of the $99 by which July’s bill exceeds February’s, $48 comes from the higher price and the rest from the air conditioning.

Where July electricity is cheaper

At 56 utilities, a kilowatt-hour in July costs no more than one in February. At some it costs clearly less — Ameren Illinois (20.1¢ against 22.8¢), Duke Energy Indiana (15.1¢ against 16.4¢), Duke Energy Florida (13.7¢ against 14.6¢), Ohio Edison (24.7¢ against 25.9¢), Cuivre River Electric Coop (9.8¢ against 10.3¢), Entergy Mississippi (9.5¢ against 9.8¢). These are mostly utilities whose tariff steps the price down after a monthly threshold, or sets a higher winter rate to discourage heating with electricity. A house that uses a lot in July moves into the cheaper block.

What this means for the summer bill

The lever is the air conditioner, not the calendar. At most utilities, the only way to make July cheaper is to use less energy in July. A thermostat two degrees higher, shade on west-facing windows, and a serviced unit do more than anything written in the tariff.
On a time-of-use plan, the hour matters as well as the amount. Where the summer peak runs through the late afternoon, pre-cooling the house before the window opens moves load to cheaper hours. Our guide on why summer bills are higher goes through it step by step.
Budget for July in March. Each utility page shows what the same house pays in its dearest and cheapest months. Knowing the figure in advance takes the surprise out of the bill, and some utilities offer budget billing to spread it across the year.

None of this means summer rates do not exist, or that they never matter. It means that when a July bill doubles, the rate is rarely the main reason — and a household that blames the rate will look for savings in the wrong place.

Method and limits

Source: the NREL Utility Rate Database, public domain, snapshot 2026-08-27. One plan per utility — the default residential plan, inferred the same way as on each utility page. Plans that cover only part of the bill or carry demand charges are excluded.
The house: three or four people with central air conditioning, modelled hour by hour through 2026, so the air conditioning loads the afternoons of the hot months as it actually does. The same load is used at every utility, so the comparison is about tariffs, not climates.
It has no electric heating. A home that heats with electricity has its dearest month in winter, and for it the balance between price and usage can look very different. This report is about the air-conditioned summer.
Climate is held constant. A house in Phoenix runs its air conditioner far more than one in Minneapolis. We use one household everywhere so that differences come from the tariff. Real July usage in a hot state will be higher than ours, which makes the usage share of the increase larger still.
The rate’s share is July’s energy cost minus July’s usage priced at February’s average energy price. Fuel adjustments and riders not carried in the database are not included.

Citation. plainrates, “Why is the July electric bill so much higher? Mostly not because of the rate”, 2026-08-27. https://plainrates.com/report/summer-bills/. Derived from the NREL Utility Rate Database (public domain).