Editorial policy

Sources

We use public data from U.S. government agencies and a few state commissions. Each page names the sources behind its figures, and the data sources page gives the period, the retrieval date and the licence for every file. If a source is not an official file, the page says so.

How a number is produced

Every figure is computed by script from the source files. A utility price is revenue divided by sales; a typical bill is that price times typical use; reliability figures follow the IEEE 1366 definitions used in EIA-861. Formulas are written out on the methodology page. Estimates and scenarios, such as solar installation cost or appliance running hours, are labeled as scenarios on the page where they appear.

Checks before a release

Before pages go live we run automated checks: every internal link is followed, a set of control figures on the pages is compared with the source files, the files are scanned for broken figures and banned wording, and series of similar pages are tested for repeated text. Failures are fixed before release.

Updates

EIA-861 is released once a year, monthly retail sales arrive roughly two months after the month they describe, and the Short-Term Energy Outlook is published monthly. We rebuild when new files arrive. The data changelog and the feed list what changed.

Limits we state on the pages

• In states where customers choose a retail supplier, the utility on a page may only deliver the power. We name this on the page and do not present delivery charges as the price of electricity.
• Reliability reporting to EIA is voluntary in many states, so utilities that report are not a random sample.
• Risk indexes and weather reports describe exposure, not a record of outages.

Bill help and shutoff rules

Pages on assistance programs and disconnection rules summarize what state commissions and federal programs publish. They are not legal advice. Each one links to the agency that decides, and the regulators page lists the commission for every state. Rules change; check with the commission before you act.

Independence

No utility, supplier or advertiser pays for placement on this site. We do not accept payment to change a figure, a ranking or a sentence.

Corrections

When we find a wrong number or sentence, we fix the page and record the fix on the corrections page, with the date, the page and what changed.