PJM capacity prices and electric bills: what the data show

Which states paid more, and how much

PJM Interconnection runs the wholesale market and grid in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. Comparing the 12 months from September 2025 to August 2026 with the 12 months before, the average residential price rose by 6.5% for the US as a whole and the median state's change was +6.1%¹. Several PJM jurisdictions were near the top of the national list.

Over those 12 months the District of Columbia rose 19.8% (the highest change among the 50 states and DC), Maryland 12.7% (3rd highest), Pennsylvania 12.3% (4th highest), Ohio 11.7% (6th highest), Virginia 11.5% (7th highest), Illinois 10.6% (9th highest) and New Jersey 10.2% (10th highest¹).

Across the 50 states and DC, 10¹ had a 12-month increase of 10% or more. The chart puts every PJM jurisdiction next to the US.

District of Columbia+19.8%

Maryland+12.7%

Pennsylvania+12.3%

Ohio+11.7%

Virginia+11.5%

Illinois+10.6%

New Jersey+10.2%

Indiana+8.8%

Michigan+8.0%

Kentucky+6.8%

United States+6.5%

Delaware+6.1%

North Carolina+5.5%

Tennessee+3.7%

West Virginia+0.9%

Source: EIA, Electric Power Monthly / EIA-861M sales and revenue by state. Change between the trailing 12-month average price and the 12 months before it. Period: September 2025 to August 2026.

Show the numbers

Area	Residential change, 12 months
District of Columbia	+19.8%
Maryland	+12.7%
Pennsylvania	+12.3%
Ohio	+11.7%
Virginia	+11.5%
Illinois	+10.6%
New Jersey	+10.2%
Indiana	+8.8%
Michigan	+8.0%
Kentucky	+6.8%
United States	+6.5%
Delaware	+6.1%
North Carolina	+5.5%
Tennessee	+3.7%
West Virginia	+0.9%

These are average prices: what residential customers paid in total divided by the kWh they used, including fixed charges and riders. They are not a tariff rate, and in states with retail choice they cover only customers who buy their electricity from the utility. The full ranking of price increases shows every state on the same basis.

What a capacity price pays for

Wholesale power in PJM is paid for in two main parts. Energy is the electricity actually produced. Capacity is a payment to power plants and other resources for being available when the grid is under stress. In LBNL's words, capacity markets "are used to send supplemental price signals to generators that new supply is needed", on top of the energy market.

PJM buys capacity through an auction held well ahead of each delivery year, which runs from June 1 to May 31. The auction for June 2025 to May 2026 was reported by PJM on July 30, 2024, and LBNL describes PJM's capacity auction prices rising from their 2024 low. LBNL's 2026 review of retail prices, written with the Brattle Group, puts the effect on PJM's average wholesale costs at:

• Capacity, 2025 vs 2024: 0.9¢ per kWh more.
• Wholesale energy, 2025 vs 2024: 1.7¢ per kWh more, separate from capacity, as natural gas delivered to generators cost +36.0% more than in 2024.
• Capacity, expected 2026: a further 0.6¢ per kWh².

So capacity was one part of the wholesale increase, not all of it: on LBNL's figures, energy costs rose more than capacity in 2025. LBNL also notes that capacity's contribution to PJM wholesale costs rose from its 2024 low but "did not greatly exceed earlier years".

The June step that a single month hides

Where default supply is bought at auction, capacity costs enter household prices when the new supply prices start; in New Jersey that is June 1. When the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities certified the February 2025 auction for basic generation service, it projected residential bill increases beginning June 1, 2025 and said "PJM's recent capacity auction results are the main driver of these increases".

The monthly EIA series shows that step. New Jersey's average residential price rises every June, when summer rates begin, but the jump between May and June 2025 was much larger than in the two years before, and the following winter stayed well above the winter before it.

New JerseyUnited States

Source: EIA, Electric Power Monthly / EIA-861M sales and revenue by state. Average revenue per kWh (all charges, nominal dollars), each month; summer and winter months differ by season. Monthly EIA data through August 2026 (released October 23, 2026); months since January 2026 are preliminary.

Show the numbers

Period	New Jersey (¢/kWh)	United States (¢/kWh)
Jan 2024	17.82¢	15.41¢
Feb 2024	17.65¢	16.10¢
Mar 2024	18.01¢	16.67¢
Apr 2024	18.46¢	16.86¢
May 2024	18.57¢	16.40¢
Jun 2024	19.90¢	16.38¢
Jul 2024	20.70¢	16.62¢
Aug 2024	20.63¢	16.60¢
Sep 2024	19.32¢	16.82¢
Oct 2024	19.56¢	17.09¢
Nov 2024	19.58¢	16.85¢
Dec 2024	19.41¢	16.27¢
Jan 2025	19.70¢	15.92¢
Feb 2025	19.70¢	16.40¢
Mar 2025	19.65¢	17.03¢
Apr 2025	19.91¢	17.20¢
May 2025	20.24¢	17.33¢
Jun 2025	24.65¢	17.44¢
Jul 2025	25.11¢	17.39¢
Aug 2025	24.70¢	17.57¢
Sep 2025	23.32¢	18.05¢
Oct 2025	22.49¢	17.95¢
Nov 2025	22.68¢	17.77¢
Dec 2025	22.92¢	17.11¢
Jan 2026	23.13¢	17.45¢
Feb 2026	23.12¢	17.65¢
Mar 2026	23.48¢	18.60¢
Apr 2026	23.53¢	18.86¢
May 2026	23.27¢	18.44¢
Jun 2026	24.95¢	18.34¢
Jul 2026	25.19¢	18.31¢
Aug 2026	24.61¢	18.16¢

That timing changes what each measure reports. Over the 12 months from September 2025 to August 2026, New Jersey's average was 23.74¢ per kWh, 10.2% above the 12 months before. In August 2026 alone it was 24.61¢ per kWh, against 24.70¢ per kWh in August 2025: a change of −0.4%¹, because both months already include the higher supply price. A page quoting only the latest month's year-over-year change would miss New Jersey's increase. Monthly figures since January 2026 are preliminary.

Shopping states and utility-owned generation

LBNL points out that utilities in wholesale market regions cannot always own their own generation. Where they do not, customers who have not chosen a supplier receive default service bought by or for the utility, so wholesale capacity and energy costs pass into the default price, as New Jersey's auction shows. LBNL notes that states with vertically integrated utilities are "shielded to some extent from capacity auction price spikes" because those utilities can supply their own capacity rather than buy it from PJM.

The split is visible but not clean. West Virginia, where the share of homes buying from a supplier was 0.0% in 2025, rose +0.9% over the last 12 months, the 4th lowest change among the 50 states and DC. Kentucky rose +6.8%. Virginia, also without meaningful retail shopping (0.0%³), rose +11.5%¹, so capacity prices are not the whole story there; LBNL's review lists fuel, distribution, transmission and the cost of new generation among the drivers of 2025 price changes across states.

Two cautions apply to any state-level comparison. PJM covers only parts of some of these states, so a state average also includes customers of utilities outside PJM. And in choice states the residential average in this table covers only default-service customers: the 22.4% of Pennsylvania homes that bought from a supplier in 2025, or the 58.1%³ in Ohio, paid a supplier's price for supply and the utility separately for delivery, and those figures are reported on their own. See retail choice in Pennsylvania and retail choice in Ohio for each part of the market.

From price to bill: the 2025 numbers

EIA's annual utility data for 2025 cover a year in which the higher capacity prices applied from June onward. The average monthly residential bill rose 5.9%⁴ for the US from 2024 to 2025. In PJM jurisdictions:

Prices are residential averages in ¢ per kWh; bills are in dollars per month. A bill can rise faster or slower than the price because use per home changes with the weather from one year to the next.

LBNL reports its own figures for the change in the average retail price from 2024 to 2025 in PJM states: 3.1¢ per kWh in DC, 2.0¢ per kWh in New Jersey, 1.5¢ per kWh in Maryland, 1.2¢ per kWh in Illinois, 1.2¢ per kWh in Pennsylvania, 0.9¢ per kWh in Indiana and 0.8¢ per kWh² in Ohio. LBNL calls capacity prices "a significant contributor" to those increases. Its measure is not the same as EIA's residential average in the table above, so the two sets of numbers should be read side by side, not subtracted from each other.

What to watch next

The 12-month figures on this page run to August 2026, so they combine most of the June 2025 to May 2026 delivery year with the first months of the next one. EIA publishes September 2026 data on November 24, 2026; each new month replaces the oldest one in the 12-month average. New Jersey's monthly series shows another rise between May and June 2026, when the next delivery year began; part of every June rise there is the switch to summer rates. Whether LBNL's expected 2026 capacity effect reaches retail prices in full will show in the 12-month figures as the months after June 2026 replace the older ones.

For a household, the useful checks are your state's 12-month change in the ranking of price increases, your utility's default-service price where you have retail choice, and the guide to help paying an electric bill if the increase is hard to absorb.

Method

Residential prices are EIA's average revenue per kWh (EIA-861M and Electric Power Monthly; months since January 2026 preliminary). The 12-month change compares total revenue divided by total kWh for September 2025 to August 2026 with the same calculation for the 12 months before. Annual prices and bills for 2024 and 2025 come from EIA-861; the average monthly bill is residential revenue divided by customers and by 12. The share buying from a supplier is EIA-861's count of residential customers served by energy-only providers. Wholesale capacity and energy effects and the state price changes labelled LBNL are quoted from LBNL and Brattle's Retail Electricity Price and Cost Trends, 2026 edition and are not recomputed by us. State averages include all utilities in the state, whether or not they are in PJM.