The Burrow
Feb 13, 2026
As energy costs rise worldwide, many Australian households are experiencing financial and emotional strain from keeping electricity costs affordable. Online search engines are seeing increased traffic for queries about energy bills, such as “help paying electricity bill” or “electricity bill shock”, but where in the world is the most anxious about the state of their household costs?
The energy provider comparison experts at Compare the Market have put together a bills anxiety index to rank the areas around Australia that are searching online for help with their electricity and gas costs the most. We’ll also look at some of the US states that are feeling the strain of saving on energy bills. Here is what we found…
By measuring the search volume of common terms related to energy bill anxiety, we’ve ranked the Australian states based on how worried their residents are about saving on electricity costs. Each state was assigned a score from 0 to 100, with 100 indicating the most anxiety and 0 the least.
Topping our list is the Australian Capital Territory, which received a perfect rating of 100. Residents of the territory were especially concerned about energy, with 1,985.8 searches per 100k people. We also found 384.1 searches related to financial worries per 100k people, and 52.8 searches (per 100k) for emotional anxiety-related topics.
The state with the second-highest energy bill anxiety, Victoria, scores just 54.75 out of 100, giving the Australian Capital Territory a clear lead. Homeowners and renters in the region appeared to focus on budgeting, as Victoria ranked second in the state for online searches related to financial strain (298.5 per 100k). It’s also the state with the fourth most online traffic for energy awareness queries (497.7 per 100k).
Rounding out the top three is South Australia, which scores 44.9 out of 100. Despite having little concern for finances (298.5 related searches per 100k), South Australia ranked second for energy awareness searches (1,577.2 per 100k), beaten only by the Australian Capital Territory. Most notable of all, though, is that it’s the most anxious state in the country based on search traffic, as we found 57.5 anxiety-related searches per 100k residents.
On the other side of the spectrum, Western Australia had the least energy-anxious residents in the country, scoring just 1.12 out of 100. Its traffic for anxiety-related topics (23.6 per 100k) and finance-related issues (82 per 100k) were both the lowest in Australia in their respective categories. At the same time, it ranked second-lowest for energy awareness (167.3 per 100k). Tasmania scored the second-lowest overall, following closely behind with 1.46 out of 100, while Queensland capped off the bottom three with a score of 9.85.
Now that we know which states rank highest on our energy bills anxiety index, how do Australian cities fare in our data?
Using the same methodology, we saw that Ballarat in Victoria had the most concerned residents regarding energy bills. Despite being the least populous city that we researched, with just 119,284 people, it ranked second-highest in Australia for searches related to financial strain (327 per 100k), beaten only by Bendigo (339.6). It’s also the most anxious city in the country, according to search traffic (92.2 anxiety-related searches per 100k). However, its interest in energy awareness is more in line with the national average (620.4 searches per 100k, compared to 564.38 nationwide). Its final score of 74.27 out of 100 overall put it in the lead.
Just under one point behind was Canberra, ACT, which takes the second spot on our list, as expected given our state rankings. The Australian capital had the second-highest traffic for energy awareness queries in the country (1,791.9 per 100k) and ranked highly for financial strain searches (307.5 per 100k). However, its 47 searches for anxiety per 100k residents doesn’t align with the rest of our highest-ranking cities, giving it a total score of 73.33.
In third place was the South Australian capital, Adelaide, with a score of 70.15 out of 100. It’s the most energy-aware city in Australia according to our rankings, with 1,829.1 searches per 100k residents for related topics. With 178 financial strain searches per 100k, it appears relatively anxious compared to the national average (194.2 related searches per 100k).
Meanwhile, the least energy-anxious city in the country is Perth, WA. It ranks as the second-lowest-traffic area for energy awareness (183.2 searches per 100k), emotional anxiety (24.1 per 100k), and financial strain searches (84.6 per 100k). These combine to give it a low score of just 2.53 out of 100.
Sunshine Coast, QLD, ranked second last in our data, scoring 5.86 overall, while the Gold Coast, a fellow Queensland city, followed with 9.54 out of 100.
It’s not just Australia that’s worried about its energy spending, as costs are also on the rise in the United States. We’ve run each of the 50 states through our energy bills anxiety index and found that Texans experienced the most stress when it comes to saving on electricity, scoring 59.21 out of 100. With 302.9 energy awareness searches per 100k residents, it’s by far the most energy-conscious state in the country, boasting almost three times more searches than Pennsylvania’s 106.7 per 100k (the second-most for the topic).
Texas also ranked highly in financial concerns (209.3 searches per 100k), but it’s beaten by our second-highest-ranked state, West Virginia (248 per 100k). Despite scoring low on energy awareness (48 per 100k), West Virginia had the highest number of searches for anxiety-related topics in the US (54.2 per 100k), giving it a total of 56.56 points on our index.
Delaware was ranked as one of the US’s most energy-anxious states, taking a bronze medal finish. Its financial concerns ranked relatively high (186.3 per 100k), but its anxiety searches (53.2 per 100k) drove its strong overall score of 51.37.
So, which states were the least anxious about their energy spending? Nevada had the lowest score in our data, with just 8.64 points, despite a healthy level of concern about financial issues (104.1 searches per 100k). It’s trailed by Idaho, which scored 9.97 overall, and Montana, with a score of 10.21.
Our index shows that energy bill anxiety is widespread, even in areas with relatively low search traffic. But how can we keep our spending to a minimum?
Meredith O’Brien, Head of Energy at Compare the Market, said there are ways to try lower your bills by making some habit changes.
“While energy bills can be a challenge to keep down, there are many ways that you can change your habits to reduce the strain on your wallet.
“Try buying eco-friendly appliances and products where possible, and pay attention to your energy provider’s peak times, as some may give you benefits for using electricity outside of peak usage hours.
“You can also compare your energy bills with other companies through Compare the Market. Just enter a few details and see if you can find a better deal.”
This dataset ranks AUS states/territories, the 20 most populous AUS cities, and all US states by anxiety about energy bills, using 3 groups of search prompts. Each group’s data was collected, converted to per 100,000 population, and normalised to a score between 0 and 1. If data were missing, a score of 0 was given. These scores were then combined to give each location a total score out of 100, and locations were ranked from highest to lowest.
The search prompts used are as follows:
Energy awareness prompts:
Financial strain prompts:
Emotional anxiety prompts:
The factors were indexed as follows:
All Factors – higher is better.
All data is correct as of 09/01/26. The ranking data shown is a compilation of multiple data sources and may not be representative of real life. All data is accurate with regard to the sources provided. All search data is from Dec 24 – Nov 25.