How much does a portable air conditioner cost per month in North Carolina?

About $10.52 a month, assuming 1,100 W at a 80% duty cycle, 8 hours a day, 120 days a year at 14.95¢/kWh.

How many kilowatt-hours does a portable air conditioner use?

Roughly 845 kWh a year under these assumptions, or 0.88 kWh for every hour it runs.

Is that expensive compared with other states?

North Carolina has the 14th cheapest average residential rate in the country, so this appliance costs less here than the U.S. average of $153 a year.

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Cost to run a portable air conditioner in North Carolina (August 2026 rates)

At 14.95¢ per kilowatt-hour — North Carolina's average residential price in August 2026 — running a portable air conditioner costs $126 a year. That is 18% less than the national average of $153. North Carolina's residential rate is up 2.5% from August 2025, which moves this appliance from $123 to $126 a year.

Per hour: 13.2¢
Per day of use: $1.05
Per month: $10.52
Per year: $126

Assumption: 1,100 W at a 80% duty cycle, 8 hours a day, 120 days a year — 845 kWh a year. Single-hose portables push conditioned air out of the room and pull unconditioned air in through every crack to replace it, so real-world runtime is longer than the spec sheet implies. Use the calculator to swap in the numbers from your own model.

How North Carolina compares

North Carolina pays 14.95¢/kWh, the 14th cheapest residential electricity of the 51 U.S. jurisdictions EIA reports. For this appliance that works out to $27.12 less a year than the typical U.S. household pays for the same use. Running the same portable air conditioner costs $107 a year in Nevada and $399 in Hawaii, so where you live changes this bill by $291 a year.

State	Rate	Per month	Per year
Washington	14.63¢	$10.30	$124
Oklahoma	14.82¢	$10.43	$125
North Carolina	14.95¢	$10.52	$126
Florida	14.99¢	$10.55	$127
Arizona	15.05¢	$10.60	$127

States ranked by average residential price, cheapest first. See all 51 states for a portable air conditioner.

What else costs about the same in North Carolina

Space heater$129 a year in NC Garage refrigerator$135 a year in NC Electric clothes dryer$117 a year in NC

Cutting the number down

A dual-hose model draws outdoor air for condenser cooling instead of depressurizing your room. It is the biggest efficiency difference in this category.
Insulating the exhaust hose keeps rejected heat from radiating straight back into the room you just cooled.
For the same BTU rating, a window unit almost always costs less to run than a portable.

Questions

How much does a portable air conditioner cost per month in North Carolina?: About $10.52 a month, assuming 1,100 W at a 80% duty cycle, 8 hours a day, 120 days a year at 14.95¢/kWh.
How many kilowatt-hours does a portable air conditioner use?: Roughly 845 kWh a year under these assumptions, or 0.88 kWh for every hour it runs.
Is that expensive compared with other states?: North Carolina has the 14th cheapest average residential rate in the country, so this appliance costs less here than the U.S. average of $153 a year.