Cost to run an LED bulb in Virginia (July 2026 rates)
At 17.55¢ per kilowatt-hour — Virginia's average residential price in July 2026 — running an LED bulb costs $2.88 a year. That is 4% less than the national average of $3.01. Virginia's residential rate is up 11.2% from July 2025, which moves this appliance from $2.59 to $2.88 a year.
- Per hour
- 0.2¢
- Per day of use
- 0.8¢
- Per month
- 24.0¢
- Per year
- $2.88
Assumption: 9 W, 5 hours a day, 365 days a year — 16 kWh a year. A 9 W LED producing about 800 lumens, the equivalent of an old 60 W incandescent. Use the calculator to swap in the numbers from your own model.
How Virginia compares
Virginia pays 17.55¢/kWh, the 20th most expensive residential electricity of the 51 U.S. jurisdictions EIA reports. For this appliance that works out to 12.5¢ less a year than the typical U.S. household pays for the same use. Running the same LED bulb costs $2.09 a year in Louisiana and $7.88 in Hawaii, so where you live changes this bill by $5.79 a year.
| State | Rate | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | 17.00¢ | 23.3¢ | $2.79 |
| Minnesota | 17.45¢ | 23.9¢ | $2.87 |
| Virginia | 17.55¢ | 24.0¢ | $2.88 |
| Delaware | 18.48¢ | 25.3¢ | $3.04 |
| Wisconsin | 19.06¢ | 26.1¢ | $3.13 |
States ranked by average residential price, cheapest first. See all 51 states for an LED bulb.
What else costs about the same in Virginia
Cutting the number down
- Per bulb the cost is trivial; a house has 40 of them, and that is the number that matters.
- Dimming an LED does cut power draw, though not perfectly in proportion to the light output.
Questions
- How much does an LED bulb cost per month in Virginia?
- About 24.0¢ a month, assuming 9 W, 5 hours a day, 365 days a year at 17.55¢/kWh.
- How many kilowatt-hours does an LED bulb use?
- Roughly 16 kWh a year under these assumptions, or 0.01 kWh for every hour it runs.
- Is that expensive compared with other states?
- Virginia has the 20th most expensive average residential rate in the country, so this appliance costs less here than the U.S. average of $3.01 a year.