Methodology

How we calculate PressurePoint Scores and what the data means.

The PressurePoint Score

The PressurePoint Score quantifies rate-increase vulnerability for a utility's residential customers by combining two core factors:

PressurePoint Score = electricity rate (¢/kWh) × poverty rate (%)

A higher score indicates greater regulatory exposure — customers are paying elevated rates in areas where more households live below the poverty line.

PressurePoint Tiers

Tier	Percentile Range	Interpretation
Most Exposed	Top 20% of cohort	Maximum regulatory exposure — high rates meet high poverty
At Risk	60th–80th percentile	Significant exposure requiring proactive action
Watch List	40th–60th percentile	Moderate exposure — defensible with demonstrated action
Defensible	Bottom 40%	Below-average regulatory exposure

Dataset Scope

The PressurePoint Score analyzes 602 utilities — 144 Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) and 458 Municipal utilities — drawn from a universe of 1,456 total U.S. utilities.

Excluded: Cooperatives, Retail Power Marketers, State-owned, Federal, Behind the Meter, Community Choice Aggregators, and Political Subdivisions (853 utilities excluded).

Cohort Definitions

Utilities are grouped into six cohorts by ownership type and customer count:

Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs)

Megawatt Majors — 500,000+ residential customers (56 utilities)
Regional Powerhouses — 100,000–500,000 customers (48 utilities)
Frontier Operators — Under 100,000 customers (40 utilities)

Municipal Utilities

Metro Municipals — 100,000+ residential customers (19 utilities)
Community Anchors — 25,000–99,999 customers (80 utilities)
Local Providers — Under 25,000 customers (359 utilities)

Data Sources

Electricity rates & billing data: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Poverty rates: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS)
Rate trajectory: 5-year rate change calculated from EIA data (2019–2024)

Key Metrics

Monthly Bill

The estimated monthly residential electricity bill for each utility is calculated from three fields reported on EIA Form 861 (2024):

Total Residential Revenue (reported in thousands of dollars)
Total Residential Sales (reported in megawatt-hours)
Total Residential Customers (count)

For utilities that report across multiple service types (bundled and delivery-only), all filings are aggregated to produce a single utility-level figure per state.

Effective Rate ($/kWh) = Total Residential Revenue ÷ Total Residential Sales

Monthly Avg Consumption (kWh) = Total Residential Sales ÷ (Total Residential Customers × 12)

Monthly Bill ($) = Effective Rate × Monthly Avg Consumption

This produces a utility-specific monthly bill that reflects both the rate customers pay and how much electricity they actually use. Utilities in dense urban markets (e.g., Consolidated Edison at 371 kWh/month) have lower consumption than the national average (~880 kWh/month), while utilities in high-AC Southern markets (e.g., Alabama Power at 1,129 kWh/month) have higher consumption.

Poverty Rate

Percentage of households in the utility's service territory living below the federal poverty line, derived from Census ACS data at the county level, weighted by the utility's county coverage.

5-Year Rate Change

Percentage change in the utility's residential electricity rate (¢/kWh) from 2019 to 2024. This trajectory metric highlights utilities facing accelerating regulatory exposure, even if their current score is moderate.

State Rank

Each utility is ranked against same-type peers (IOU or Municipal) within its state, providing local context for the national score.

Limitations

The PressurePoint Score captures rate-based regulatory vulnerability, not total energy burden (which would include heating fuel, efficiency, and housing costs).
County-level poverty data may not precisely match utility service territory boundaries.
Cooperatives and other excluded utility types face similar affordability challenges but are not covered in this analysis.