City of Palo Alto (CA) Electricity Rate per kWh (2024 EIA Data)
Municipal|EIA utility 14401|California|Bundled
In 2024, City of Palo Alto (CA)'s residential customers paid an average of 20.67 cents per kWh: $33 million of revenue over 157,856 MWh of sales across 26,249 bundled residential customers, as reported to EIA on Form 861.
How the 20.67c figure is calculated
20.67c/kWh = $32,625k revenue / 157,856 MWh x 100. This is EIA's average realised price for 2024: everything City of Palo Alto (CA) billed its residential customers (energy, delivery, fuel and rider charges, fixed charges) divided by the kilowatt-hours it sold. It is not a tariff rate, and a 2024 annual average will differ from a current bill. For a 1,000 kWh month at this average, the energy cost works out to about $207 before taxes.
About City of Palo Alto (CA)'s 2024 electricity prices
City of Palo Alto (CA) is a municipally owned electric utility that reports to the U.S. Energy Information Administration under utility number 14401. In 2024 it served 26,249 bundled residential customers in California, and its average realised residential price was 20.67 cents per kWh: $33 million of residential revenue divided by 157,856 MWh of residential sales.
Across the other sectors, City of Palo Alto (CA)'s 2024 average prices were 16.97 cents for commercial customers (3,526 accounts) and 18.98 cents for industrial customers (58 accounts). Industrial customers paid 1.69 cents less per kWh than households, a 8% discount that is typical of high-volume, high-voltage service.
Within California, City of Palo Alto (CA) ranked number 20 of 35 utilities with bundled or delivery service by residential accounts served (26,249) and accounted for 0.18% of the state's residential electricity sales in 2024, measured in MWh sold or delivered rather than in customers. The state-wide average realised residential price in 2024, computed from the same EIA file, was 31.97 cents per kWh, so City of Palo Alto (CA)'s customers paid 11.30 cents below the California average (-35.3%). For context, EIA's latest monthly figure for California is 34.74 cents per kWh (June 2026, Electric Power Monthly); that is a different, more recent measure across all utilities and is not directly comparable with a 2024 annual average.
EIA's service-territory file places City of Palo Alto (CA) in 1 California county: Santa Clara. On the grid side it operates in the WECC NERC region and the CAISO (California ISO) market, and reported buying transmission, distribution, wholesale marketing, and bundled as its activities. Balancing authority code: CISO.
City of Palo Alto (CA) is not among the utilities included in EIA's preliminary 2025 early release, so the 2024 final data is the most recent figure available for it.
The nearest other utilities in California by service-territory centroid are City of Santa Clara (CA) (0 miles away, 16.88 cents), Alameda Municipal Power (31.8 miles away, 22.98 cents), Modesto Irrigation District (47.3 miles away, 21.78 cents), Merced Irrigation District (53.2 miles away, 24.25 cents), and City of Lodi (CA) (54.3 miles away, 22.47 cents).
| Sector | Customers | Sales (MWh) | Revenue ($k) | Avg c/kWh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential | 26,249 | 157,856 | 32,625 | 20.67 |
| Commercial | 3,526 | 619,338 | 105,108 | 16.97 |
| Industrial | 58 | 115,063 | 21,843 | 18.98 |
Counties served in California (1)
From the EIA-861 Service Territory file; a listed county can be served in part only.
Nearby and comparable utilities in California
- EIA utility number
- 14401
- Ownership type
- Municipal
- Data year
- 2024 final (EIA-861)
- Primary state
- California
- Service type
- Bundled (Part A)
- Bundled residential customers (CA, price basis)
- 26,249
- Residential accounts served (CA)
- 26,249
- All accounts, all sectors (CA)
- 29,833
- Residential price, 2024
- 20.67 c/kWh
- Commercial price, 2024
- 16.97 c/kWh
- Industrial price, 2024
- 18.98 c/kWh
- Residential sales
- 157,856 MWh
- Residential revenue
- $33 million
- Rank in California by residential accounts served
- 20 of 35
- Share of California residential sales (MWh, not customers)
- 0.18%
- California average, 2024
- 31.97 c/kWh
- Counties served (CA)
- 1
- NERC region
- WECC
- RTO / ISO
- CAISO (California ISO)
- Balancing authority
- CISO
- Reported activities
- Buying Transmission, Distribution, Wholesale Marketing, Bundled
- Registry status
- Reported on Form EIA-861 for 2024
Realised price times usage; fixed charges are already inside the average. Bill calculator ->
Annual averages hide seasonal and tariff differences. Diagnose a high bill or model time-of-use pricing.
Bill Diagnostic ->Time-of-Use Guide ->Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861 Annual, 2024 final data (public domain), retrieved 28 August 2026; prices are average realised revenue per kWh, not tariffs. Final 2024 file f8612024.zip (released 3 December 2025) from the EIA-861 detailed data files. Preliminary 2025 figures come from the early-release file f8612025er.zip (4 August 2026), which EIA has not yet validated; they are labelled as such wherever shown and never mixed into a final figure.
Method: cents per kWh = revenue (thousand dollars) divided by sales (megawatthours), times 100. Customer counts, sales and revenue are the utility's own annual survey responses by state and sector. Bundled = energy plus delivery from one utility; delivery-only = the wires charge for customers who buy energy from a competitive supplier; energy-only = a competitive supplier's energy charge without delivery. County lists come from the EIA-861 Service Territory file; territory centroids used for "nearby utilities" are unweighted means of Census 2023 county centroids. EIA content is in the public domain (EIA copyright and reuse statement); the EIA logo is not used. Corrections: [email protected].