City of Columbia electricity rates
City of Columbia charges an average of 13.94 cents per kilowatt-hour to residential customers, and the average household on its system paid $109 a month using 785 kilowatt-hours, according to its 2024 filing with the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Municipal utility MISO Missouri
Where City of Columbia sits
It serves 45,651 residential customers in Missouri. At 13.94¢ per kilowatt-hour it tracks the Missouri average of 13.68¢ closely, which is what you would expect from a utility large enough to shape that average itself.
Consumption is close to the national norm at 785 kilowatt-hours a month against 871, so the rate translates fairly directly into the bill.
Owned by the city it serves and governed by a local board rather than the state commission. No shareholder return is built into the rate. That matters because a bill is not only the cost of generating electricity: it also carries the cost of the network, and who owns that network changes how it is paid for.
| Rate | Monthly bill | Monthly kWh | |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of Columbia | 13.94¢ | $109 | 785 |
| Missouri average | 13.68¢ | $145 | 1,046 |
| United States average | 18.44¢ | $155 | 871 |
Utility figures: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861 annual electric power industry report, 2024. State and national figures: Electric Power Monthly, May 2026. Methodology
Where City of Columbia delivers
Its service territory covers one county in Missouri.
- Boone
How often the power goes out
In 2024 the average City of Columbia customer went 35 minutes without electricity across 0.5 interruptions. The median across the 941 utilities that report this is 185 minutes.
That is markedly better than typical. Short outage durations usually mean an underground or heavily automated network, and they are expensive to achieve, which is part of why reliable systems often carry higher delivery charges.
Rooftop solar on this system
552 residential customers had net-metered solar in 2024, totalling 4.46 megawatts. That works out to 12.1 installations per thousand customers, against a median of 8 across the utilities reporting it.
Adoption is above the national median, which generally tracks the retail rate more closely than it tracks sunshine. What exports are actually worth.
Other Missouri utilities
| Utility | Rate | Bill | Customers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Union Electric Co | 12.56¢ | $124 | 1.1 million |
| Evergy Missouri West | 12.55¢ | $123 | 305,583 |
| City of Independence | 15.74¢ | $132 | 53,832 |
| Southwest Electric Coop, Inc | 11.99¢ | $124 | 41,386 |
| White River Valley El Coop Inc | 14.30¢ | $148 | 39,216 |
City of Columbia rates: common questions
How much does City of Columbia charge per kilowatt-hour?
An average of 13.94 cents per kilowatt-hour across its residential customers in 2024. That is +1.9% against the Missouri average of 13.68¢ and -24.4% against the national average of 18.44¢. It is an all-in average across every residential rate schedule the utility offers, not a specific tariff.
What is the average City of Columbia bill?
$109 a month, based on total residential revenue divided by residential customers over the 2024 survey year, at an average of 785 kWh a month. The national average bill is $155 at 871 kWh.
Who owns City of Columbia?
It is classified by the EIA as a municipal utility. Owned by the city it serves and governed by a local board rather than the state commission. No shareholder return is built into the rate.
Is City of Columbia expensive compared with other Missouri utilities?
It ranks #12 of the 44 Missouri utilities covered here, counting from the most expensive. Nationally it ranks #587 of 1369.