Riverside Public Utilities: price per kWh, bills and the 2025 rise

What Riverside homes paid per kWh in 2025

Riverside Public Utilities is a municipal utility owned by the City of Riverside. It both supplies and delivers the electricity of its 101,042 residential customers, so there is one residential average to report, not separate supply and delivery figures. In 2025 that average was 21.94¢ per kWh¹, according to EIA's annual survey of utilities (Form EIA-861).

The figure is average revenue per kWh: everything the utility billed homes divided by the kWh they bought. It blends the monthly customer charge, each rate step and any adjustments, so it does not match a line of the tariff, and a home with low use pays more per kWh than a home with high use.

Two numbers circulate that are not this one:

• Statewide monthly prices. EIA's monthly survey (Form EIA-861M) samples utilities, and Riverside is not in the sample. The 12-month California average of 32.34¢ per kWh² (September 2025 to August 2026) covers every provider in the state and is dominated by PG&E, Edison and SDG&E.
• The Bureau of Labor Statistics metro price. BLS's last published average for the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metro area was $0.273 per kWh³ in December 2024, and the series has since been discontinued. It covered the whole metro area, not Riverside Public Utilities alone.

Edison's neighbour: a lower price, a bill not far behind

EIA's service-territory records place Riverside Public Utilities in Riverside County⁴ only, a county it shares with other utilities, including Southern California Edison. The city utility's boundary, not the county or a ZIP code, decides which one serves an address.

Riverside Public Utilities onlyRiverside Public Utilities and other utilitiesOther utilities

Source: EIA-861 2025, service territory; Census Bureau, Cartographic boundary file, counties. EIA-861 2025 service territory: 1 counties. Counts whole counties even where the utility serves only part of one; check the utility's own service-area map for an address.

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County	Other utilities reporting service
Riverside County	Southern California Edison, Imperial Irrigation District, City of Banning, City of Moreno Valley, Anza Electric Cooperative, City of Corona, WAPA-- Western Area Power Administration

Per kWh, the two are far apart. Riverside's homes paid 21.94¢ per kWh in 2025; Edison's bundled residential customers, who buy both supply and delivery from SCE, paid 31.48¢ per kWh. Riverside ranked 11th lowest of the 25 California utilities with 10,000 or more residential customers, close to the middle of that list. California's public power utilities as a group averaged 22.74¢ per kWh, its investor-owned utilities 33.91¢ per kWh¹.

Bills tell a different story. A Riverside home bought 616 kWh a month on average, against 474 kWh for an Edison bundled home and 494 kWh for the average California home (California's use per home ranked the lowest⁶ among the states). With that much more electricity per home, Riverside's average bill came to $135.25, against $149.07 at Edison. Anaheim, another city utility in the region, averaged $92.09 on 476 kWh; LADWP $124.20 on 469 kWh¹.

Anaheim Public Utilities (CA)$92.09

LADWP (CA)$124.20

Riverside Public Utilities (CA)$135.25

Southern California Edison (CA)$149.07

Imperial Irrigation District (CA)$202.30

Source: EIA-861 annual electric power industry report, 2025 final. EIA-861 2025 final. Average revenue per kWh is all charges divided by kWh; it is not a tariff rate.

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Utility	average monthly residential bill
Anaheim Public Utilities (CA)	$92.09
LADWP (CA)	$124.20
Riverside Public Utilities (CA)	$135.25
Southern California Edison (CA)	$149.07
Imperial Irrigation District (CA)	$202.30

EIA's annual data do not say why Riverside homes use more. The Imperial Irrigation District, in the desert of the Imperial Valley, shows how far the pattern can go: 1,083 kWh a month per home and a bill of $202.30¹ in 2025.

2025: the price rose faster than the bill

From 2024 to 2025, Riverside's residential average rose 8.6%, from 20.20¢ per kWh⁷ to 21.94¢ per kWh. Edison's bundled average moved −2.9% over the same years and the California average across all providers −1.9%, while the US average rose 4.6%⁸. The two other large city utilities in Southern California rose more than Riverside: Anaheim +13.2%, LADWP +11.1%¹.

Lower use softened the increase. Riverside homes bought 637 kWh a month in 2024 and 616 kWh in 2025, so the average bill went from $128.68 to $135.25, a change of +5.1%. Edison's bundled bill fell over the same years, from $164.02⁷ to $149.07 (−9.1%¹), which is why the gap between the two bills narrowed.

Riverside's rates are not set in proceedings at the California Public Utilities Commission. The Legislative Analyst's Office report on residential electricity rates (January 2025) explains that the state does not regulate the rates of publicly owned utilities, which are set by their own governing boards. Increases for 2026 and later are therefore published by the City of Riverside with its rate schedules; EIA's annual figures for 2026 are due in August 2027.

Low for California, high for public power nationally

Outside California the same average looks different. Among US utilities with 100,000 or more residential customers that report a bundled price, Riverside ranked 25th highest of 177, and its 2025 average was 51.4% above the national average for public power. The median of those large utilities was 15.07¢ per kWh¹.

Other large city-owned utilities averaged far less per kWh in 2025: Tallahassee Utilities 13.97¢ per kWh, Lakeland Electric 11.73¢ per kWh, Lincoln Electric System 11.15¢ per kWh and Colorado Springs Utilities 15.43¢ per kWh¹.

Lincoln Electric System (NE)11.15¢

Lakeland Electric (FL)11.73¢

City of Tallahassee Utilities (FL)13.97¢

Colorado Springs Utilities (CO)15.43¢

Riverside Public Utilities (CA)21.94¢

Source: EIA-861 annual electric power industry report, 2025 final. EIA-861 2025 final. Average revenue per kWh is all charges divided by kWh; it is not a tariff rate.

Show the numbers

Utility	average residential price (bundled customers)
Lincoln Electric System (NE)	11.15¢
Lakeland Electric (FL)	11.73¢
City of Tallahassee Utilities (FL)	13.97¢
Colorado Springs Utilities (CO)	15.43¢
Riverside Public Utilities (CA)	21.94¢

Their bills are a reminder that price and bill are separate questions. Tallahassee's homes bought 934 kWh a month and paid $130.50 on average, about what Riverside homes paid for 616 kWh. Colorado Springs homes used about as much as Riverside's (602 kWh) and averaged $92.91¹.

Few advanced meters, little time-of-use, solar on many roofs

Riverside reported 34.9% of its residential meters as advanced (AMI) meters in 2025, against 87.8% across California and 99.7% at Edison. Time-varying pricing reached fewer homes still: 2,807 residential customers, 2.8% of the total, were on time-of-use rates, compared with 35.9% of California homes and 11.3%⁹ nationally. The time-of-use guide explains how such plans change a bill.

Rooftop solar is more common than across the US as a whole. Riverside counted 7,975 net-metered residential installations with 48.6 megawatts of capacity in 2025: 78.9 per 1,000 residential customers, against 38.1 in the US, though about half the California figure of 156.0⁹. Electricity that panels produce and use on site never reaches EIA's kWh per home, which counts only what the utility sells.

Outages: about a quarter of the state average

Riverside customers averaged 88 minutes without power in 2025, counting every event, fewer than the California average of 345 minutes. Excluding major event days, the days the IEEE 1366 standard flags as statistically exceptional, the total was 76 minutes, so major event days added little to the year's total. Each customer had 0.49 interruptions on average, against 1.27 across California. Edison's customers averaged 545 minutes including major event days and 116 minutes¹⁰ without them.

Commercial and industrial customers

Riverside's businesses paid less per kWh than its homes in 2025: 20.05¢ per kWh for its 12,377 commercial customers, with an average monthly bill of $596.46, and 15.89¢ per kWh for its 698 industrial accounts. Across all 114,117 accounts the average was 18.91¢ per kWh. Edison's commercial customers paid 22.94¢ per kWh and its industrial customers 20.43¢ per kWh¹.

Households that need help with energy bills can apply for LIHEAP, the federal assistance program; California's allocation was $242.1 million¹¹ for fiscal year 2026. For prices across the state, see electricity in California.