2024 Residential Utility Disconnections Report

What is being called a ” first-of-its-kind federal report” had some startling revelations when it came to power shutoffs across the U.S. It showed utilities disconnected residential electric service 13.5 million times for unpaid bills in 2024 and residential gas service cutoffs happened 1.6 million times.

Surprisingly, Oklahoma was the third ranked highest state in the U.S., behind number one Texas and number two Florida. The number of cutoffs in Oklahoma in 2024 totaled 572,480 according to data from the U.S. Energy and Information Administration and from the Energy Policy Institute.

The Institute explained that Oklahoma actually ranked first in the nation for utility shutoffs relative to its customer base — nearly one electric or gas shutoff for every three households.

The Policy Institute noted that the shutoffs happened even as the industry posted record profits. Further, CEO compensation reached record heights at the same time. The industry’s highest-paid CEO in 2025 was Bill Fehrman, who runs the parent company of the Public Service Company of Oklahoma. The parent company, Ohio-based American Electric Power (AEP), compensated Fehrman $36.6 million in 2025. It would take the average worker in Oklahoma 615 years to earn what Fehrman made last year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fehrman’s 2025 pay was a $23.3 million increase over the previous year.

Although Oklahoma bans disconnections during extreme weather events, utilities still shut off electricity over 570,000 times to homes with past-due bills — placing Oklahoma third in disconnections, behind only Texas (3M+) and Florida (2.1M+), despite being a fraction of their size.

Utilities typically execute shutoffs when households are more than about $100 and thirty days past due, although there are reports of shutoffs for households owing as little as eight cents, according to the Energy Equity Project, a non-profit that advocates for energy affordability and ending shutoffs.

Twenty two states, including Oklahoma, don’t require utilities to report disconnection data at all, making this federal report the “most sobering portrait we have of the country’s energy affordability challenges,” said Jean Su of the Center for Biological Diversity, which pushed for the national survey after inconsistent state laws limited monitoring of disconnections during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This data lands at a particularly newsworthy moment: state lawmakers are actively challenging regulators over recent rate hikes, arguing customers have been overcharged.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) prepared this report in response to the Explanatory Statement accompanying the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (P.L. 117-328), which included language expressing interest in issues related to residential utility disconnections.¹

In April 2023, EIA initiated a new collection of data on monthly final notices, disconnections, and reconnections due to bill nonpayment from natural gas and electricity delivery companies serving U.S. residential customers. This process included both a pilot survey and two cognitive studies, culminating in Form EIA-112, Residential Utility Disconnections Survey, approved by the Office of Management and Budget in October 2024. The collection was launched in February 2025 and completed in December 2025; data processing was completed in February 2026.

The data in this report represent the total number of final notices, disconnections, and reconnections issued in each month of calendar year 2024. An individual customer account may receive more than one final notice, disconnection, and/or reconnection per calendar year.

• Final notices. Approximately 27.1 million final notices were sent to residential natural gas utility customers in 2024. April had the highest amount, with 2.9 million final notices, and November had the lowest amount, with 1.6 million final notices. Approximately 94.9 million final notices were sent to residential electricity customers in 2024. October had the highest amount, with 9.0 million final notices, and June had the lowest amount, with 7.2 million.
• Disconnections. There were 1.7 million residential natural gas disconnections in 2024. April had the most disconnections (214,726), and December had the fewest (52,783). There were 13.4 million residential electricity disconnections in 2024. October had the most disconnections (1.5 million), and July had the fewest (967,012 thousand).
• Reconnections. Approximately 1.2 million residential natural gas customer accounts were reconnected in 2024. October had the most reconnections, with 131,472; January had the fewest, with 63,758. In 2024, 11.4 million residential electricity customer accounts were reconnected. October had the most with 1.3 million reconnections; July had the fewest reconnections, with 794,094.

All utilities that report delivering electricity or natural gas to residential customers on Form EIA-861, Annual Electric Power Industry Report, and Form EIA-176, Annual Report of Natural and Supplemental Gas Supply and Disposition, were required to complete Form EIA-112. There were 74.0 million residential natural gas customers and 143.0 million residential electricity customers in the United States in 2024. The response rate, weighted by number of residential customers, was 96.1% for natural gas and 93.5% for electricity.