One electricity series. Reproducible transformations.
PowerPulse separates source data from calculated benchmarks so readers can see exactly what is measured and what is modeled.
Electricity Price Index
The automated workflow retrieves monthly average residential electricity prices by state and for the United States from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's electricity retail-sales dataset.
1-month change compares the latest monthly rate with the prior month. 1-year change compares it with the same month one year earlier. 5-year change compares it with the same month five years earlier.
PowerPulse sometimes uses the phrase electricity inflation for the percentage change in this residential electricity-price series. It is not the Consumer Price Index and should not be interpreted as a CPI measure.
Cost to Run Index
Each device benchmark defines one standardized annual energy-consumption scenario. The exact same annual kWh is multiplied by each state's current average residential electricity price.
These are comparison scenarios, not household forecasts. Actual energy use can differ materially by product, efficiency, climate, settings and behavior.
State averages
EIA state averages are useful for geographic comparison but do not represent every customer's tariff. Utility territory, time-of-use plans, fixed charges, taxes and seasonal rates can all change an individual bill.
Update cadence
The GitHub Action runs weekly. EIA residential retail-price data are monthly, so many weekly runs will correctly produce no change. When a new monthly observation appears, the site rebuilds the state reports, rankings, cost benchmarks, downloadable data and sitemap before deploying that exact build.