Maine Utility Cost Calculator

Expensive kilowatt-hours, oil-fired heat

Maine pays some of the highest residential electricity prices in the country — 29.31¢ per kWh over the last year, fourth-highest — and July’s price jumped from 27.98¢ in 2025 to 32.41¢ in 2026, the third-steepest rise anywhere. Yet the typical home used only about 532 kWh a month, because so few heat with electricity (10%). The big heating fuel is oil: 49% of Maine homes heat mainly with fuel oil or kerosene, the highest share in the country, and another 16% with propane. Unusually, the electric bill peaks in late winter: $204.16 in February 2026.

Two utilities, many suppliers

Central Maine Power (3.5 TWh to homes in 2024) and Versant Power (0.8 TWh) own the wires and deliver nearly all residential electricity under the Maine Public Utilities Commission. Supply is a separate market: 27 energy-only providers delivered 43% of retail sales to about 96,000 accounts, and the supply charge on a Maine bill is listed separately from delivery. Nearly every residential meter (98%) is an advanced meter.

In-state generation in 2024 was 44% gas, 20% hydro, 17% wind and 11% wood — the wood share is second only to Vermont’s. Maine generated about 30% more electricity than it consumed.

Outages

Major events took a heavy toll on Maine’s grid in 2024. Counting them, the average customer lost about 1,749 minutes of power in 2024 — roughly 29 hours, second only to South Carolina; excluding them, 274 minutes, third-highest.

Budgeting heating fuel

An oil-heated Maine home burned about 567 gallons a year in the 2020 survey; when EIA’s weekly survey closed for the 2025–26 season, heating oil was $5.371 a gallon and propane $3.523. Very few homes have natural gas (about 43,000 accounts), and EIA lists the 2025 residential gas price as not available, so the calculator uses 2024’s. Heating help comes through MaineHousing, the Maine State Housing Authority.