5 utilities compared · 28 plans · 2,269 ZIP codes
Electricity rates in California
Not a state average. The same household, priced hour by hour for a year on the default plan at each utility we cover here — so the differences below are differences in the tariffs, not in how much anyone used.
What a year of electricity costs in California
| Household | Uses | Median, per year | Cheapest utility | Dearest utility |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apartment One or two people, no central air, no electric heat | 4,866 kWh | $1,675 | $889 | $2,350 |
| Family home Three or four people with central air conditioning | 9,453 kWh | $3,585 | $1,672 | $4,726 |
| Home with an EV Same house, plus an electric car charging overnight | 13,103 kWh | $5,161 | $2,067 | $6,618 |
Median and range across the 5 utilities, each on the plan a household lands on by default. Estimates for comparing utilities against each other, not a prediction of any one bill; they exclude taxes, local surcharges and demand charges.
How much does where you live inside California matter?
Run the same three-bedroom house with central air through the default residential plan at each of the 5 utilities we cover in California, and the yearly bill lands between $1,672 at City of Riverside and $4,726 at San Diego Gas & Electric; the median is $3,585. That is a 2.8× gap for identical electricity, decided by where in California the house stands and nothing else. No plan choice at a single utility closes a gap that size — but inside each one there is usually still money on the table.
The utility is fixed by your address; the plan is not. At Southern California Edison, the cheapest and dearest of its 7 comparable plans are $3,122 a year apart for the same house — about the same as the gap between California's cheapest and dearest utilities, and unlike that one, it is a choice you get to make.
Every one of these utilities files at least one plan priced by the hour — 21 such plans in all. That makes California a place where moving laundry, dishes or car charging into the cheap window changes the bill, provided you are on one of those plans; on a flat plan the clock is irrelevant.
Utility by utility
Cheapest first, for the family home. The last two columns are where the money is: how far the default plan sits from the cheapest one the same utility files.
| Utility | Plans | Default plan, a year | Cheapest plan | By the hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of Riverside Domestic TOU Service - Medium Residence | 1 | $1,672 | only plan | 1 plan |
| Los Angeles Department of Water & Power Residential Service (R1A): Zone 1 | 4 | $2,328 | $2,316 | 1 plan |
| Southern California Edison Domestic Service: D - Baseline Region 10 · Baseline Region 10 | 7 | $3,585 | $3,545 | 6 plans |
| Pacific Gas & Electric E-1 -Residential Service Baseline Region P · Baseline Region P | 8 | $3,786 | $3,409 | 6 plans |
| San Diego Gas & Electric DR - Coastal Baseline Region · Coastal Baseline Region | 8 | $4,726 | $3,951 | 7 plans |
Before you compare anything
- Should you switch to a time-of-use electricity plan?
A wide peak-to-off-peak gap is a lever, not a saving. Levers need something to move.
- How to compare electricity plans without getting it wrong
Six things that break a comparison, and the order to check them in.
- Electricity rates by state: what the filed tariffs actually say
Median rates from the tariffs themselves, not a state-level average.