I’d like to know the average electricity consumption for a family of four in one year. We are using about 700 kilowatt hours a month and that seems high to me. How do we compare to the average?
Answer from Green Energy Efficient Homes
The average electricity consumption for a family of four will vary considerably depending on where you live. And the consumption of individual households can be quite far from that average. As I explain in my About me page, my family of four got our household use down to 180 kilowatt hours a month which is about one sixth the average of my home province of Ontario.
In Costa Rica where I lived for a year, most families used almost no electricity – enough for a couple of lightbulbs, a semi-automatic clothes washer doing the wash once a week, and maybe a table top fan for very hot days. Many people in smaller towns didn’t even own a refrigerator. Prices were high enough that people there couldn’t really afford to use much more. All told, the average Costa Rican family probably used 2 kilowatt hours a day or less – or 60 kilowatt hours a month. And by developing-world standards Costa Rica is well off; in many other developing countries electricity isn’t even available to most people, so the average is very low.
On the other hand, if you live in Phoenix chances are you can’t survive without air conditioning for much of the year, and whole house air conditioning on a hot day can account for up to 90% of your electricity use on such days.
The average electricity consumption of a US family of four as of 2020 (the last full year for which data is currently available) is in the neighborhood of 27 kWh per day, or 808 kWh per month. That’s substantially lower than a little over a decade ago. In 2009 the average was 50 kWh per day, or 1,500 kWh per month, or almost double where we are now. Similar figures apply for Canada. Assuming an average electricity cost of $0.13 per kWh, that translates into about $6 per day for electricity, or $107 per month.
Here’s how I calculated these figures:
| Amount | Item |
| 3,804,000,000,000 | Total kWh consumed in US in 2020 |
| 21% | Used for residential |
| 798,840,000,000 | kWh residential use in 2020 |
| 329,500,000 | US population 2020 |
| 2,424 | kWh per person |
| 9,698 | kWh for a family of four |
| 808 | kWh per month (family of four) |
| 27 | kWh per day (family of four) |
| $0.132 | average cost per kWh 2020 |
| $107 | cost per month (family of four) |
| $4 | cost per day (family of four) |
That’s the average. Of course, you can do much better than that. As I mentioned Canadian and US total electricity consumption per capita is about the same, and Ontario where I live has almost identical daily consumption to the US average, at 26 kWh per day for a typical family of four (that’s down from 2009 as well, but not by as much – dropping from 35 kWh). My home city of Toronto gets pretty hot in the summer so some use of air conditioning is fairly typical. Toronto has a climate not that different from the midwestern states of the US, or New England states. We pay around $0.15 for electricity here if you count all the extra costs they throw on our bill, so a typical household pays about $103 a month for electricity or roughly $1,425 per year.
Average electricity consumption in 2009 was lower in the US than in Canada because the Canadian average is heavily influenced by electric heating, especially in Quebec where the provincial electric utility heavily promoted electric heating for decades. As of 2020 the average electricity consumption for different countries is:
- Canada: 11,535 kWh per year (ours was 3,030 in 2007! but climbed to 13,587 as of 2021 because we replaced all our gas appliances with heat pumps. Now we’re not cooking with gas!)
- US: 9,698 kWh per year by my method; 10,715 according to energy.gov
- European Union: 3,763 kWh per year (basically unchanged since 2000)
- Japan: 7,200 kWh per year (up from 5,945 in 2009)
Since a family of 5 is probably larger than a typical household, but adding extra people doesn’t make that much difference to the electrical load, I would guess 12,000 kilowatt hours per year is a reasonable average.
Of course that is an average. Someone who leaves all the lights on, runs the air conditioner on high all summer, and has a big plasma screen TV on all the time will use more than that, as will anyone in a cold climate who heats with electric baseboard heaters. Meanwhile, someone who heats with natural gas, oil, wood, or solar, installs compact fluorescent lights, turns the lights off when not needed, and only runs the air conditioner when absolutely essential, will use a lot less.
As I said, you can do much better than the average. For a while, my household (two adults, two kids) used about 300-400 kWh per month, or around a third of our local average. But by carefully tracking how much we consumed, and finding ways to cut back on waste, as I explain in How to save electricity, we managed to reduce our consumption to about 7 kilowatt hours a day. It’s sometimes challenging to keep your consumption down that low – but it is doable. Then we got rid of our gas furnace, gas hot water heater, and gas dryer, and replaced them all with heat pumps, and now we consume quite a bit more electricity – around 1,100! – but we’re not using any natural gas.
We live in Germany and use about 4000 kWh for a family of 4. We dont use A/C but our hotwater is electric – a flow through water heater.
We used to live in Canada and we no longer understand why the electricity usage is so high there. Easily double of Europe. Perhaps it really amounts to poor house construction and the desire to have a low interior temperature during the summer. Our apartment in Germany has about 20 cm thick stone walls. It is also designed to create a draft if the right windows are opened. So even if the outside temperature is almist 30C, A/C is not required.
One final note dont use a dryer. Sun drying saves your clothes and electricity. Dont need fabric softner either. All-around win.
I have tracked my annual and monthly consumption since 2005. I live in BC, Canada. Since 2005 and so far the highest monthly average (2012) was 771 kw-hr/month and the lowest up to 2015 619 kw-hr/month. I have made significant change in residence type resulting in an average in 2016 of 414 kw-hr/month and I fully expect to average less than 350 kw-hr/month in 2017. We are not freezing in the dark!
I believe the difference is in the “efficiency” of the 220 volts AC. We used 120, so heating and working demands more electricity, hence more consumption. But it is safer.
Increasing the voltage of a circuit or appliance simply allows for the use of smaller wires, while maintaining the same efficiency.
My family of 6 is using 30,765kwh annually. I think there’s a mistake but every time I bring it up to Peco they blow me off. My bill each month is in the $900 range and it use to be around $280. Am i right to think there’s something not right?
If your bill jumped from $280 to $900 it’s safe to assume there is something wrong. Do you use a lot of air conditioning, or use electric heating? Those are the main sources of excess energy use. The other possibility is a refrigerator or freezer that no longer works properly – you would notice it running almost continuously instead of the compressor cycling on and off. You might want to hire a home energy auditor to check things out for you – they will likely discover sources of waste that will pay for their fee within a month.
13.69 if you divde per person, while that is higher than normal, that is also not insanely higher as well, keep in mind some of this can be taken as a loss for conversion or some fees they slap in an are not actual “in your tank” power, however, the math sounds about right, person in Canada seems to be in the range of 7.8-14Kw per day.
Most of us here in Canada require that much more lighting, cooling, heating, more zones for the electrical load etc, in some cases far far more than average because they just need to leave lights on, cannot afford to replace old things (most cannot)
^.^
I’m not sure “most of us cannot afford to replace old things” is true, I think it’s more a question of people prioritizing conservation over other things, or even knowing that replacing old things actually has a pretty fast payback. For example, there are usually spring sales on LED light bulbs, coupled with utility incentives, and I was able to replace all the compact fluorescents in my house with LEDs for under $20. The end result is a 2/3 reduction in my lighting costs.
Also most of us in Canada don’t require more cooling, and we certainly don’t need to leave lights on. These are choices.
We had a nanny when our kids were young, and she did meal prep for us in late afternoon. I often found her slicing carrots or onions in a dark kitchen with no light on. When I asked her why she didn’t have the lights on, she seemed surprised. Why turn on the lights when there’s enough light from outside to see what she’s doing. First world people have a tendency to want tons of electric lighting when a little natural light would do. We need to learn to make compromises between our ‘luxuries’ and the planet’s health.
If you are using board heaters, and if they are old ones, the most probable thing happening there is that its “internal resistance to ground’ – due to its aging – have immensely been reduced, hence you have a heater going wild…but not yet ‘short circuited”. It will deliver more HEAT, but it is ONLY because its internal resistance to ground is almost nil. It’s time to replace them with new ones.
Did they switch you to a “Time of Use” rate plan. That can cause your bill to increase dramatically, unless you diligently conserve energy during peak hours. Most utilities offer a variety of rates and you may be on the wrong plan.
In Toronto (2017) we use between 35 kWh/month and 80 kWh/month, mostly all at the lowest rates. We pay about $35 – 45 per month. I’m trying out some new R-150/inch insulation with the fridge and that will drop further once in place. Other then the fridge most AC goes to our electronics or lights.
we live in Calgary, in two story 12 years old house, there is 3 of us, all adults, total electricity usage was 4227kwh/year or 352kwh/months, in May this year we change all CFL to all LED lighting, our house very typical for two story build in Calgary with total area of 1970 sqft, with gas heating
I live in Albuquerque, NM and the average we pay for electricity is about $0.17/kwh. I am retired with just my wife in I in a 1500 sqft house with EVAPORATIVE AC or better know as swamp coolers. These only work well in the southwest. On average we use about 400 kwh per month and our bill is around $60.00 per month. In contrast we lived in south central Texas for about 10 years with standard AC and it was not unusual to use 1600 kwh/month in the summer with a $300 electric bill. That was in a 2000 sq ft house with a different wife which makes a big difference. You would think solar would be great here. However, with my usage and age, 71, if I put in solar panels I most likely would not live to get them to pay off. My brother lives in Clinton, MD and installed a complete set of solar panels with a big wall battery about 2 years ago. He is 6 years older than I am and when i discussed the pay back time he said based on what is was saving he would break even if he lived to be 95.
I live in Michigan, my family of four uses 130 kWh a month the only appliance we limit use on is the cloths dryer it’s propane anyway. Propane water heater and stove too, heat with wood mostly have propane backup. We put up 3000 watts of solar panels to help achieve this and not worry about brownouts and to be more green, propane is also considered a green energy so our house is almost carbon neutral with low cost and no sacrifice!!!!!!
Propane is definitely not a green source of energy, it is a fossil fuel and produces CO2 as a byproduct. While it has a lower ratio of CO2 emissions per BTU produced than heating oil (139 lbs of CO2 emissions per million BTUs, vs. 161 lbs for heating oil), it produces more CO2 than natural gas per unit of heat output (that same 139, vs 117 for natural gas). As well, fossil fuels are consumed, and CO2 emitted, during its refinement from natural gas, and its transportation. However, if you’re using that little electricity ad heating mostly with wood and generating your own electrical power, and only using propane as a backup for very cold days, you are indeed mostly carbon neutral and I commend you for your efforts. Your monthly consumption is admirably low, and you’re doing a lot more to reduce your footprint than most North Americans!