Which U.S. metro uses the most electricity?

New York–Newark–Jersey City (NY) tops the list at roughly 141.3 TWh/year of electricity demand, based on state-weighted EIA retail-sales data.

How is metro-level demand calculated?

We multiply each metro's primary-state per-capita electricity consumption (from the EIA retail-sales API) by the metro's V2025 Census population. This is a sound approximation when a metro's primary state matches its grid territory, which is the case for nearly all 25 in this list.

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Which U.S. metros use the most electricity?

The top three metros — New York–Newark–Jersey City (141.3 TWh/yr), Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington (135.1 TWh/yr), and Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands (126.0 TWh/yr) — together consume roughly 402 terawatt-hours of electricity per year.

#	Metro	TWh / year	Population	MWh / person
1	New York–Newark–Jersey City(NY)	141.3	20,112,448	7.0
2	Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington(TX)	135.1	8,477,157	15.9
3	Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands(TX)	126.0	7,904,627	15.9
4	Chicago–Naperville–Elgin(IL)	98.8	9,434,123	10.5
5	Washington–Arlington–Alexandria(DC)	94.5	6,465,724	14.6
6	Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell(GA)	86.0	6,482,182	13.3
7	Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim(CA)	80.2	12,844,441	6.2
8	Miami–Fort Lauderdale–West Palm Beach(FL)	69.5	6,391,072	10.9
9	Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington(PA)	68.9	6,329,118	10.9
10	Phoenix–Mesa–Chandler(AZ)	62.3	5,228,938	11.9
11	Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue(WA)	46.8	4,161,883	11.2
12	San Antonio–New Braunfels(TX)	44.8	2,813,140	15.9
13	Detroit–Warren–Dearborn(MI)	42.9	4,390,913	9.8
14	Minneapolis–St. Paul–Bloomington(MN)	42.0	3,790,295	11.1
15	Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos(TX)	41.8	2,620,945	15.9
16	Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater(FL)	37.2	3,418,895	10.9
17	Charlotte–Concord–Gastonia(NC)	34.9	2,938,830	11.9
18	St. Louis(MO)	34.9	2,814,421	12.4
19	Boston–Cambridge–Newton(MA)	34.8	5,034,221	6.9
20	Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford(FL)	32.2	2,957,672	10.9
21	Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario(CA)	29.8	4,769,007	6.2
22	Denver–Aurora–Centennial(CO)	29.2	3,092,037	9.5
23	San Francisco–Oakland–Fremont(CA)	28.9	4,630,041	6.2
24	Baltimore–Columbia–Towson(MD)	26.9	2,857,781	9.4
25	San Diego–Chula Vista–Carlsbad(CA)	20.5	3,282,248	6.2

How we ranked these

Each metro's annual demand is the latest available state-level retail-sales total from EIA, scaled by the ratio of metro population to state population (from U.S. Census Vintage 2025). For metros that cross state lines, we use the primary state. Per-capita figures are for context — they reflect both residential, commercial, and industrial load mixed together. See full methodology.

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