California (CA) electricity and natural gas rates
Electricity
33.61¢
per kWh
Natural gas
$2.06
per therm
Gas and electricity in the same unit
A therm is 29.3 kilowatt hours of energy, so California's gas works out at 7.03¢ per kWh against 33.61¢ for electricity.
That compares the energy you buy, not the heat you get. A furnace throws away a fifth of every therm up the flue, while a heat pump delivers two to three times the heat in a kilowatt hour — so the cheaper unit here is not automatically the cheaper way to heat a house.
Residential sector, US Energy Information Administration, 2026-07. Updated monthly.
How California compares
At 33.61¢ per kWh, California is above the national average of 19.26¢, making it the 50th cheapest of the 51 states we track.
What a typical California household uses
Electricity a month
487 kWh
Bill a month
$161
Households in California use 43% less electricity than the national average and pay 7% more than average. That is a price problem rather than a consumption one — at 33.61¢ a kilowatt hour, even a modest amount of electricity adds up. The climate is fairly balanced — 2,300 heating degree days against 1,200 cooling ones — so neither season dominates the bill.
More on this: the average electric bill in California, including how far it swings between seasons.
Averaged over twelve months across 14,863,374 residential accounts in California. Source: EIA.
What this means for heating
California sees around 20 freezing nights a year. Whether a heat pump beats a furnace here depends on the gap between those two prices above — not on the equipment.
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