South Dakota (SD) electricity and natural gas rates
Electricity
15.37¢
per kWh
Natural gas
$1.71
per therm
Gas and electricity in the same unit
A therm is 29.3 kilowatt hours of energy, so South Dakota's gas works out at 5.85¢ per kWh against 15.37¢ 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 South Dakota compares
At 15.37¢ per kWh, South Dakota is below the national average of 19.26¢, making it the 18th cheapest of the 51 states we track.
What a typical South Dakota household uses
Electricity a month
986 kWh
Bill a month
$140
Households in South Dakota use 15% more electricity than the national average and pay 7% less than average. Cheap power absorbs most of that: the meter turns faster here, but at 15.37¢ each unit costs less than it does nationally. The climate pulls the other way here: 7,500 heating degree days against 800 cooling ones, so how a home is heated matters more than how it is cooled.
More on this: the average electric bill in South Dakota, including how far it swings between seasons.
Averaged over twelve months across 449,777 residential accounts in South Dakota. Source: EIA.
What this means for heating
South Dakota sees around 165 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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