Virginia (VA) electricity and natural gas rates
Electricity
17.55¢
per kWh
Natural gas
$2.88
per therm
Gas and electricity in the same unit
A therm is 29.3 kilowatt hours of energy, so Virginia's gas works out at 9.82¢ per kWh against 17.55¢ 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 Virginia compares
At 17.55¢ per kWh, Virginia is below the national average of 19.26¢, making it the 32nd cheapest of the 51 states we track.
What a typical Virginia household uses
Electricity a month
1,051 kWh
Bill a month
$173
Households in Virginia use 22% more electricity than the national average and pay 15% more than average. Cheap power absorbs most of that: the meter turns faster here, but at 17.55¢ each unit costs less than it does nationally. The climate is fairly balanced — 4,000 heating degree days against 1,400 cooling ones — so neither season dominates the bill.
More on this: the average electric bill in Virginia, including how far it swings between seasons.
Averaged over twelve months across 3,725,797 residential accounts in Virginia. Source: EIA.
What this means for heating
Virginia sees around 85 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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