Ohio ranked as one of the least expensive energy states

Ohio’s rank­ing as one of the nation’s best states for ener­gy costs could take a hit as tem­per­a­tures con­tin­ue to rise and elec­tric­i­ty use increases.

Wal­letHub, a per­son­al finance web­site, ranked the state as the 15th-best in the coun­try when com­par­ing each state’s total month­ly ener­gy bills by using a for­mu­la that takes into account elec­tric­i­ty, nat­ur­al gas, motor fuel and home heat­ing oil.

“July tends to be the hottest month of year. In the U.S., ener­gy costs eat between 5% and 22% of fam­i­lies’ total after-tax income, with the poor­est Amer­i­cans, of 25 mil­lion house­holds, pay­ing the high­est of that range,” Adam McCann, a Wal­letHub finan­cial writer, wrote in the report.

Ohio’s aver­age total ener­gy bill per house­hold was $308, slight­ly high­er than Montana’s $305 and bet­ter than New Mex­i­co’s $310.

Penn­syl­va­nia was the clos­est of all of Ohio’s neigh­bors with a month­ly cost of $313. Michi­gan had a cost of $315, fol­lowed by Ken­tucky at $320, West Vir­ginia at $343 and Indi­ana at $356.

Ohio’s month­ly elec­tric­i­ty cost of $115 and motor fuel cost of $140 ranked among the low­est in the nation. Its nat­ur­al gas cost of $50 and home heat­ing oil cost of $3 were among the worst.

“Ohio is the 15th-least ener­gy-expen­sive state with an aver­age month­ly ener­gy bill of $308. This is most­ly due to the fact that it has one of the low­est aver­age res­i­den­tial prices for home heat­ing oil – just $2.62 per gal­lon, and for nat­ur­al gas – $9.58,” said Jill Gon­za­lez, a Wal­letHub analyst.

Con­necti­cut ranked as the state with the high­est total ener­gy cost at $411 a month, fol­lowed by Wyoming, Mass­a­chu­setts, Geor­gia and Alaba­ma. The Dis­trict of Colum­bia at $217 a month had the low­est ener­gy cost, fol­lowed by Wash­ing­ton, Col­orado, Ore­gon and Arizona