Electricity rates & appliance costs in Rhode Island

Why electricity costs 28.29¢/kWh in Rhode Island

Winter heating is the main seasonal peak, with modest summer cooling.

Delivery is regulated and dominated by one utility, but Rhode Island has allowed retail choice since 1996, so some customers buy supply from nonregulated providers.

At 28.29¢/kWh, Rhode Island sits well above the 18.3¢ U.S. average. That works out to $282.90 for every 1,000 kWh used — so a 1,500 W space heater costs $0.42 an hour to run, and a family heating with electric resistance instead of gas feels that difference in every winter month.

How Rhode Island compares with neighbouring states

Rhode Island ranks 7th of 51 jurisdictions by residential price, from Hawaii at 48.00¢ down to Louisiana at 12.72¢ — a spread of about 3.8× across the country. Identical appliance habits can therefore cost several times more in one state than another.

Across New England — the regional grouping the EIA itself uses for comparison — the average rate including Rhode Island is 27.62¢/kWh, so Rhode Island pays $0.67 more per kWh than that regional average. On a 1,500 W space heater running 6 hours a day, that gap alone is about $184.49 a month.

• Vermont23.8¢
• Connecticut24.2¢
• New Hampshire26.6¢
• Massachusetts30.5¢
• Maine32.4¢

What Rhode Island households actually pay

A typical U.S. household uses around 30 kWh a day, about 900 kWh a month. At 28.29¢/kWh that is roughly $255 a month in electricity, or $3,055 a year. That is about $90 more per month than the same usage at the national average — a recurring bill difference, not a rounding detail.

Because the rate is a per-kWh price, the fastest savings come from the biggest loads: cutting a 1,500 W space heater from 6 hours a day to 3 saves about $39 a month in Rhode Island. That is why the calculators here use your state rather than a national guess.

Reading your Rhode Island utility bill

The EIA figure is a state average across utilities, not your tariff. Your bill shows your exact "price to compare" in ¢/kWh plus fixed customer charges, and sometimes tiered or time-of-use pricing. In a deregulated market you may also have chosen a retail supplier whose rate differs from the utility default.

The calculators use the published state average, which is the right basis for comparing appliances against each other. For a figure that matches your own bill, take the "price to compare" line and use it as your rate.