A comprehensive dataset of average residential, commercial, and combined electricity rates in cents per kWh for all 50 U.S. states.

Monthly average retail electricity prices by state from EIA (Residential, Commercial, All Sectors).

West Virginia and Kansas had the lowest cost of living across all U.S. states, with composite costs being half of those found in Hawaii. This was according to a composite index that compares prices for various goods and services on a state-by-state basis. In West Virginia, the cost of living index amounted to **** — well below the national benchmark of 100. Virginia— which had an index value of ***** — was only slightly above that benchmark. Expensive places to live included Hawaii, Massachusetts, and California. Housing costs in the U.S. Housing is usually the highest expense in a household’s budget. In 2023, the average house sold for approximately ******* U.S. dollars, but house prices in the Northeast and West regions were significantly higher. Conversely, the South had some of the least expensive housing. In West Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the median price of the typical single-family home was less than ******* U.S. dollars. That makes living expenses in these states significantly lower than in states such as Hawaii and California, where housing is much pricier. What other expenses affect the cost of living? Utility costs such as electricity, natural gas, water, and internet also influence the cost of living. In Alaska, Hawaii, and Connecticut, the average monthly utility cost exceeded *** U.S. dollars. That was because of the significantly higher prices for electricity and natural gas in these states.

Ireland, Italy, and Germany had some of the highest household electricity prices worldwide, as of March 2025. At the time, Irish households were charged around 0.45 U.S. dollars per kilowatt-hour, while in Italy, the price stood at 0.43 U.S. dollars per kilowatt-hour. By comparison, in Russia, residents paid almost 10 times less. What is behind electricity prices? Electricity prices vary widely across the world and sometimes even within a country itself, depending on factors like infrastructure, geography, and politically determined taxes and levies. For example, in Denmark, Belgium, and Sweden, taxes constitute a significant portion of residential end-user electricity prices. Reliance on fossil fuel imports Meanwhile, thanks to their great crude oil and natural gas production output, countries like Iran, Qatar, and Russia enjoy some of the cheapest electricity prices in the world. Here, the average household pays less than 0.1 U.S. dollars per kilowatt-hour. In contrast, countries heavily reliant on fossil fuel imports for electricity generation are more vulnerable to market price fluctuations.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) became law on August 8, 2022. Under the law, new qualifying renewable and/or carbon-free electricity generation projects constructed in certain areas of the US, called energy communities, are eligible for bonus worth an additional 10% to the value of the production tax credit or a 10 percentage point increase in the value of the investment tax credit. The IRA does not explicitly map or list these specific communities. Instead, eligible communities are defined by a series of qualifications:

1. a brownfield site,
2. a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) or non-metropolitan statistical area with either (a) 0.17% or greater employment or (b) 25% or greater local tax revenues related to the extraction, processing, transport, or storage of coal, oil, or natural gas; and an unemployment rate at or above the national average for the previous year, or
3. a census tract containing or adjacent to (a) a coal mine closed after December 31, 1999 or (b) a coal-fired electric generating unit retired after December 31, 2009.

These maps and data layers contain GIS data for coal mines, coal-fired power plants, fossil energy related employment, and brownfield sites. Each record represents a point, tract or metropolitan statistical area and non-metropolitan statistical area with attributes including plant type, operating information, GEOID, etc. The input data used includes:

1. Brownfields – Source: EPA. No analysis was performed on this data layer. However, tract polygon layers have a column denoting brownfield presence (0 for no brownfield site, 1 if the tract contains a brownfield somewhere within the polygon).
2. Eligible Employment MSAs (“Final_Employment_Qualifying_MSAs”) – Source: US Census County Business Patterns. MSAs and non-MSA regions with employment over 0.17% in the fossil fuel industry (defined here as NAICS codes 211, 2121, 213, 23712, 324, 4247, and 486) and unemployment greater than or equal to 3.9% (the average national unemployment rate in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

--Possibly Eligible MSAs (“FossilFuel_Employment_Qualifying_MSAs”) are MSA and non-MSA regions that meet or exceed the 0.17% employment in the fossil fuel industry threshold but do not exceed the unemployment threshold.

--Relevant columns include:

a) SUM_nhgis0: Total employment in 2020.

b) SUM_nhgis1: Total unemployment in 2020.

c) P_Unemp: Percent unemployment in 2020.

d) Q_Unemp: Boolean column indicating if the MSA or non-MSA’s unemployment rate is at or above the national average of 3.9%.

e) FF_Qual: Boolean column indicating if the MSA or non-MSA had employment in the fossil fuel industry at or above 0.17% in the past 11 years.

f) final_Qual: Boolean column indicating if an MSA or non-MSA qualifies for both unemployment rate and fossil fuel employment under the IRA.

1. Retired Power Plants – Source: EIA via HFLID. Qualifying power plants were selected by use of coal in at least one generator, and if they were retired (RET_DATE) on or after January 1, 2010. This data goes through December 2021.

--Adjacent tract data was derived by Cecelia Isaac using ESRI ArcGIS Pro.

1. Abandoned Coal Mines – Source: MSHA. Mines labeled “Abandoned”, “Abandoned and Sealed” or “NonProducing” between January 1, 2000 and September 2022.

--Adjacent tract data was derived by Cecelia Isaac using ESRI ArcGIS Pro.

5) US State Borders– Source: IPUMS NHGIS.

Also included here are polygon shapefiles for Onshore Wind and Solar Candidate Project Areas from Princeton REPEAT. These files have been updated to include columns related to the energy communities.

New columns include:

1. CoalPlantTract: Boolean column indicating if the CPA is within a tract that qualifies because of a retired coal plant.
2. CoalMineTract: Boolean column indicating if the CPA is within a tract that qualifies because of a closed coal mine.
3. FossilFuelEmp: Boolean column indicating if the CPA is within an MSA or non-MSA with greater than or equal to 0.17% employment in the fossil fuel industry.
4. UnempQualification: Boolean column indicating if the CPA is within an MSA or non-MSA with greater than or equal to 0.17% employment in the fossil fuel industry.
5. MSA_non_to: The code of the MSA or non-MSA area that contains the CPA.
6. P_Unemp: The percent unemployment of the MSA or non-MSA that contains the CPA in 2021.

As the renewable energy transition accelerates, housing, due to its high energy demand, can play a critical role in the clean energy shift. Specifically, multifamily housing provides a unique opportunity for solar photovoltaic (PV) system adoption, given the existing competing interests between landlords and tenants which has historically slowed this transition. To address this transition gap, this project identified and ranked Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States for ZNE Capital (the client) to acquire multifamily housing to install solar PV systems. The group identified seven criteria to determine favorable markets for rooftop solar PV on multifamily housing: landlord policy favorability, real estate market potential, CO2 abatement potential, electricity generation potential, solar installation internal rate of return, climate risk avoidance, and health costs associated with primary air pollutants. A total investment favorability score is calculated based on criteria importance assigned by the user. Investment favorability scores were investigated for different preferences to demonstrate the robustness and generalizability of the framework. The data analysis and criteria calculations were conducted using RStudio, ultimately to provide reproducible code to be used for future projects. The results are presented in a ranked list from best to worst metro areas to invest in. Future studies can utilize the reproducible code to inform decisions on where to invest in solar PV on multifamily housing anywhere in the United States by changing weights within the model depending on preferences. Methods

Collecting real estate and landlord data for metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) from federal agency databases.

Real estate metrics: Six indicator metrics were selected to represent areas with growing housing demands. The metrics included were population growth, employment growth, average annual occupancy, annual rent change, the ratios of median annual rent to median income, and median income to median home price. The population estimates and median income data was downloaded from the Census Bureau. Median rent data was downloaded from HUDuser. Median home price data was downloaded from National Association of REALTORS®. Students were provided temporary memberships to Yardi Systems Matrix to obtain multifamily occupancy rates, and this data will not be redistributed. All the real estate metrics were combined into a single dataset using CBSA codes, which each MSA has a unique 5-digit identifier. Income-to-home price and rent-to-income ratios were calculated in R Studio.

Landlord data: the minimum security deposit and eviction notice data was collected for each state and manually compiled into an Excel. Security deposit information was provided as the number of months of rent. States with no maximum deposit limit received a score of 1.0, meaning it was the most favorable. Two month's rent was scored as 0.5, and one month's rent was given a score of 0.

Using NREL's REopt web tool to 1) model solar PV system on multifamily buildings in various cities and 2) obtain data to represent energy generation, CO2 abatement potential, avoided health costs from emissions, and solar project financial criteria.

An anchor city was identified within each MSA as the city with the highest population to input into the REopt tool. Default inputs were changed based on information provided by industry experts and changes in federal funding programs. Detailed instructions of inputs were created to ensure consistency when running the model for each city. The four outputs collected from the tool include: annual energy generation from renewables (%), lifecycle total CO2 emissions, health costs associated with primary air pollutants, and internal rate of return(%). The group divided up a list of cities, input the respective data for each one, obtained the outputs, then compiled it into a Google sheet. Outputs were checked by other members to ensure accuracy.

Collecting climate risk data from FEMA's National Risk Index Map.

Climate risk data was downloaded as a CSV file. The risk score was used to represent impacts of climate variability on long-term real estate investments. Risk scores were provided at the county level. The group identified the county each city resided in, to associate the correct score to each city in R Studio

Normalizing the data

Metrics were normalized by subtracting the minimum value for the metric from each value and dividing by the difference between the maximum and minimum values. This resulted in scores between 0 and 1 that were relative to the MSAs included in the analysis.

Weighing the data

Real Estate and Landlord Criteria metrics: these two criteria contained more than one metric, so the metrics within these criteria were weighted to produce real estate and landlord scores. Weights for each criterion sum to 1, in which higher weights indicate greater importance for multifamily real estate investments. Each weight was multiplied by the respective metric, then all weighted metrics within each criterion were summed to produce the criteria score. Investment Favorability Score: seven criteria were multiplied by respective weights based on the stakeholder's preferences. Weights sum to 1 to ensure consistency throughout the project. The sum of the seven weighted criteria is the investment favorability score.

A table listing the deregulation status of electricity and natural gas markets across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia as of March 17, 2025. Includes notes on partial deregulation and market specifics.

Geneva stands out as Europe's most expensive city for apartment purchases in early 2025, with prices reaching a staggering 15,720 euros per square meter. This Swiss city's real estate market dwarfs even high-cost locations like Zurich and London, highlighting the extreme disparities in housing affordability across the continent. The stark contrast between Geneva and more affordable cities like Nantes, France, where the price was 3,700 euros per square meter, underscores the complex factors influencing urban property markets in Europe. Rental market dynamics and affordability challenges While purchase prices vary widely, rental markets across Europe also show significant differences. London maintained its position as the continent's priciest city for apartment rentals in 2023, with the average monthly costs for a rental apartment amounting to 36.1 euros per square meter. This figure is double the rent in Lisbon, Portugal or Madrid, Spain, and substantially higher than in other major capitals like Paris and Berlin. The disparity in rental costs reflects broader economic trends, housing policies, and the intricate balance of supply and demand in urban centers. Economic factors influencing housing costs The European housing market is influenced by various economic factors, including inflation and energy costs. As of April 2025, the European Union's inflation rate stood at 2.4 percent, with significant variations among member states. Romania experienced the highest inflation at 4.9 percent, while France and Cyprus maintained lower rates. These economic pressures, coupled with rising energy costs, contribute to the overall cost of living and housing affordability across Europe. The volatility in electricity prices, particularly in countries like Italy where rates are projected to reach 153.83 euros per megawatt hour by February 2025, further impacts housing-related expenses for both homeowners and renters.