Cost to run air conditioning by state
What a year of cooling costs a 1,800 square foot home with a minimum-efficiency unit, at each state's current electricity price. Dearest first.
The spread is enormous — Hawaii at $2121 a year against Alaska at $0. That is climate rather than price: the same unit in the same house runs for a small fraction of the hours.
| State | An hour | A year |
|---|---|---|
| Hawaii | $1.31 | $2121 |
| Florida | $0.38 | $584 |
| Texas | $0.41 | $540 |
| Arizona | $0.38 | $483 |
| Louisiana | $0.36 | $465 |
| Mississippi | $0.41 | $439 |
| California | $0.70 | $405 |
| District of Columbia | $0.53 | $387 |
| South Carolina | $0.41 | $385 |
| Alabama | $0.42 | $380 |
| Georgia | $0.40 | $359 |
| Oklahoma | $0.34 | $303 |
| Maryland | $0.46 | $287 |
| New Jersey | $0.49 | $283 |
| Arkansas | $0.30 | $277 |
| Illinois | $0.50 | $266 |
| Tennessee | $0.30 | $250 |
| Virginia | $0.37 | $250 |
| Nevada | $0.29 | $248 |
| North Carolina | $0.32 | $245 |
| Delaware | $0.41 | $236 |
| Kansas | $0.32 | $230 |
| New Mexico | $0.30 | $229 |
| New York | $0.63 | $217 |
| Kentucky | $0.31 | $213 |
| Missouri | $0.29 | $208 |
| Rhode Island | $0.62 | $187 |
| Indiana | $0.38 | $184 |
| Massachusetts | $0.60 | $183 |
| Pennsylvania | $0.45 | $176 |
| Connecticut | $0.57 | $174 |
| Nebraska | $0.29 | $166 |
| Ohio | $0.41 | $159 |
| Utah | $0.27 | $145 |
| Iowa | $0.30 | $144 |
| Michigan | $0.46 | $140 |
| West Virginia | $0.35 | $137 |
| New Hampshire | $0.57 | $124 |
| South Dakota | $0.33 | $114 |
| Vermont | $0.52 | $113 |
| Minnesota | $0.36 | $108 |
| Wisconsin | $0.41 | $107 |
| Maine | $0.60 | $104 |
| Colorado | $0.34 | $103 |
| Idaho | $0.26 | $78 |
| North Dakota | $0.29 | $74 |
| Montana | $0.31 | $66 |
| Oregon | $0.34 | $59 |
| Wyoming | $0.31 | $54 |
| Washington | $0.31 | $41 |
| Alaska | $0.59 | $0 |
Note that the hourly and yearly columns rank differently. The hourly figure follows the electricity price; the yearly one follows the climate, because it is mostly a question of how many hours the compressor runs. A state can be expensive per hour and cheap per year.