Average Household Electricity Consumption – 2023

Introduction – Electricity Used By A Home

Updated: 9/11/2023

Do you know how much electricity your home uses per day, per month or per year? In the United States, the average household uses 854 kWh of electricity per month, or 10,244 kWh of electricity per year. This means the average household uses 28 kWh of electricity every day. Below we present electricity use in other countries.

Average Electricity Consumption Per Year, Month and Day

Here we present the average consumption for year, month and day use. We use the US government’s EIA aggregate electricity reports for June 2023 to calculate the annual, monthly and daily figures. These figures are the latest as of Aug 2023. See below for a description of the methods.

Average household electricity consumption per year is 10,244 kWh (kilowatt hours).

Average electricity consumption per month is 854 kWh.

Average electricity consumption per day is 28 kWh.

These numbers are for a U.S. residential utility customer, which basically means a household or apartment unit.

Single Household – Instantaneous Usage

The power needs of a house at any instant then is on average 1.2 – 2.4 kilowatts.

[Update: aggregate figures are new as of Aug 31st, 2023; Statistics for state figures haven’t been released and remain unchanged.]

The EPA collects detailed statistics for the entire US and makes it available to everyone

Summary Table For Average Household Electricity Use Per Day, Month And Year

Here is the average household electricity summarized into a table.

FrequencyAverage Household Usage (kWh = kilowatt hours)
Per Year10,244 kWh
Per Month 854 kWh
Per Day28 kWh
Instantaneous1-3 kW (kilowatts)

Notes On Calculations And Data Sources

To calculate the annual, monthly and daily figures, we used the aggregate electricity use by residential customers reported by the EIA on a rolling basis until April 2023 which was 1,472,524,000,000 kWh. We also used the total number of US residential units, which according to estimates using the latest census figures are 143,786,655.

To get the instantaneous usage, we note that the number of hours in a year is 365 times 24 = 8760 hours. Then on average, at any one time, your house is using 10,244 kWh divided by 8760 hours, which is 1.20 kilowatts. If most of the load is during the day, then we can approximate it to be double at 2.4 kilowatts.

Average Household Electricity Use By State, and Cost Per kWh

For each state, below are the average daily kWh, average monthly kWh and average annual kWh. We also provide the cost of electricity per kWh.

StateAverage
Electricity Use Daily
(average daily kWh)
Average
Electricity Use Monthly
(average monthly kWh)
Average
Electricity Use Yearly
(average yearly kWh)
Average
Monthly Bill
Average
Electricity Cost
Alabama37 kWh1,145 kWh13,737 kWh$144$0.13
Alaska18 kWh552 kWh6,628 kWh$125$0.23
Arizona36 kWh1,114 kWh13,364 kWh$137$0.12
Arkansas34 kWh1,060 kWh12,720 kWh$110$0.10
California20 kWh605 kWh7,259 kWh$120$0.20
Colorado23 kWh711 kWh8,533 kWh$88$0.12
Connecticut23 kWh703 kWh8,433 kWh$154$0.22
DC20 kWh631 kWh7,567 kWh$74$0.12
Delaware30 kWh935 kWh11,214 kWh$116$0.12
Florida37 kWh1,142 kWh13,698 kWh$129$0.11
Georgia35 kWh1,081 kWh12,974 kWh$130$0.12
Hawaii17 kWh537 kWh6,446 kWh$163$0.30
Idaho31 kWh955 kWh11,463 kWh$95$0.10
Illinois23 kWh698 kWh8,376 kWh$89$0.13
Indiana30 kWh938 kWh11,259 kWh$120$0.13
Iowa28 kWh865 kWh10,380 kWh$108$0.12
Kansas28 kWh883 kWh10,598 kWh$114$0.13
Kentucky35 kWh1,073 kWh12,878 kWh$117$0.11
Louisiana39 kWh1,201 kWh14,407 kWh$116$0.10
Maine18 kWh567 kWh6,802 kWh$93$0.16
Maryland31 kWh964 kWh11,570 kWh$122$0.13
Massachusetts20 kWh610 kWh7,323 kWh$126$0.21
Michigan22 kWh676 kWh8,107 kWh$110$0.16
Minnesota25 kWh775 kWh9,298 kWh$102$0.13
Mississippi37 kWh1,146 kWh13,756 kWh$128$0.11
Missouri33 kWh1,028 kWh12,333 kWh$115$0.11
Montana28 kWh858 kWh10,299 kWh$96$0.11
Nebraska33 kWh1,013 kWh12,156 kWh$109$0.11
Nevada31 kWh971 kWh11,648 kWh$110$0.11
New Hampshire20 kWh622 kWh7,469 kWh$115$0.18
New Jersey22 kWh673 kWh8,079 kWh$107$0.16
New Mexico22 kWh670 kWh8,039 kWh$87$0.13
New York19 kWh600 kWh7,197 kWh$107$0.18
North Carolina34 kWh1,041 kWh12,490 kWh$118$0.11
North Dakota35 kWh1,085 kWh13,023 kWh$113$0.10
Ohio29 kWh888 kWh10,656 kWh$109$0.12
Oklahoma35 kWh1,078 kWh12,938 kWh$109$0.10
Oregon30 kWh916 kWh10,995 kWh$102$0.11
Pennsylvania27 kWh822 kWh9,863 kWh$106$0.13
Rhode Island19 kWh599 kWh7,187 kWh$130$0.22
South Carolina35 kWh1,081 kWh12,968 kWh$138$0.13
South Dakota33 kWh1,037 kWh12,441 kWh$122$0.12
Tennessee38 kWh1,168 kWh14,020 kWh$126$0.11
Texas37 kWh1,132 kWh13,583 kWh$133$0.12
Utah25 kWh769 kWh9,226 kWh$80$0.10
Vermont18 kWh567 kWh6,806 kWh$111$0.20
Virginia35 kWh1,095 kWh13,143 kWh$132$0.12
Washington31 kWh969 kWh11,634 kWh$96$0.10
West Virginia34 kWh1,051 kWh12,615 kWh$124$0.12
Wisconsin22 kWh694 kWh8,331 kWh$99$0.14
Wyoming28 kWh869 kWh10,432 kWh$97$0.11

We also created graphical versions of these tables to make them easier to refer to for the electricity per day, month, and year. Because electricity costs varied between states, we pulled them from EIA for easy look-up.

Average household electricity consumption for states 1/2
Average household electricity consumption for states 2/2

Observations Of Average Electricity Use By State

Surprisingly, Louisiana had the highest monthly electricity consumption at 1200 kWh per residential customer, and equally surprisingly Hawaii had the lowest at 537 kWh. So the highest is more than twice as high as the lowest! Remember that the US monthly average is 868 kWh.

What’s also interesting is that the rates paid by households in each state was wildly different. At the low end paying close to $0.10 per kWh are Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Washington. And at the high end, paying about three times more is Hawaii at $0.30 per kWh. Alaska is a distant second highest paying $0.23 per kWh.

Reducing the carbon footprint from your home’s power use is a theme we will post a lot on in the future.  As a primer for these posts we are going to look at how much electricity households use around the world, and what per person use is in different countries.

Bar graph for average household electricity use around the world

Average Household Electricity Use Around The World – 2023

About 90% of people in the world have access to electricity.  This figure increased from 2010-2020 but then dropped since the COVID pandemic.  But despite the fact more people are getting access to electricity we use very different amounts of it.

International figures for household electricity cost

Using data from the World Energy Council we can compare how much electricity the average electrified household uses in different countries.

Numbers for average household electricity around the world. Data for these countries: Canada, US, Australia, France, Japan, UK, South Africa, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, China, India, Nigeria

We also present data from IEA.org updated for 2023. This is in tabular form instead of a chart so you can copy and paste it. Note we’ve ordered it as the chart so its ranked in “kWh per household”. What should stand out is that the numbers haven’t moved too much. Canada and United States really stand out. We included also the number of households. You can see that Sweden is a much smaller country but uses more electricity than Australia or France which are larger. Notably Sweden’s electricity is very low in carbon because of hydro and nuclear.

CountryNumber of householdskWh per Household (annual)
Canada15,618,49111,305
US132,736,05511,156
Sweden4,776,2398,914
New Zealand1,906,4746,754
Australia10,220,1865,919
France30,217,9505,344
Hong Kong2,646,1074,900
Ireland1,799,2214,857
Japan55,704,9494,749
Malaysia7,176,8124,456
Spain17,565,2884,169
UK29,486,1793,658
Netherlands7,874,2583,130
Germany40,624,9713,127
Russia56,771,4782,879
Italy25,020,1202,646
South Africa17,733,1192,614
China522,689,2642,180
Indonesia69,855,3441,720
Philippines25,893,1571,324
India299,727,8601,005
Household electricity use across world in kWh per household per year

Across the countries we chose to compare household electricity use varies enormously.  The average American or Canadian household in 2010 used about twenty times more than the typical Nigerian household, and two to three times more than a typical European home.

Comparing The US, France, UK and China

In the US typical household power consumption is about 11,700 kWh each year, in France it is 6,400 kWh, in the UK it is 4,600 kWh and in China around 1,300 kWh.  The global average electricity consumption for households with electricity was roughly 3,500 kWh in 2010.

There are numerous things that drive these differences, including wealth, physical house size, appliance standards, electricity prices and access to alternative cooking, heating and cooling fuels.

Factors That Explain Why Consumption In China Is Low And India Is Even Lower

Perhaps the most surprising thing in this chart is that the global average is as high as 3,500 kWh/year, given that the figures for India and China are so low.  Two things explain this, household size and electrification rates.

In China about 99% of people have electricity and average household size is around 3.  In India these are 66% and 5 respectively  and in Nigeria 50% and 5.  Average household size in most wealthy countries is closer to 2.5 people.  As a result the distribution of electrified households is more skewed towards wealthy countries than population in general.

Global Home Electricity Use Per Person

By taking residential electricity use and dividing it by population we can look at how much electricity the average person uses at home in each country.  Unlike in our previous graph this chart takes in to account all the people in each country, so for places where electricity access is not universal the figures are lower.

Although the graphs look very similar there are some striking differences.

Americans Use 5X More Power Than Global Average

Each American uses about 4,500 kWh per year in their home.  This is about six times that of the global average per capita, or more than five times the average for those who have electricity access.

The variation between developed countries is also quite stark.  While the US and Canada are up around 4,500 kWh per person the UK and Germany are below 2,000 kWh.  In Brazil, Mexico and China per person use is just 500 kWh, but growth is very different.  In Brazil residential use per person has been stable over the last 20 years, whereas in Mexico it is up 50% and in China it has increased 600%.

Where Is Yours Like?

Our household electricity use has been 2,000 kWh each of the last few years, which means it is about 700 kWh per person.  We benefit from not using electricity for heating or cooling, although our electric oven is a big source of demand.

That makes us a Brazilian family, but global people 😉

How do you stack up?

Data Sources

Instructions:

For the average household electricity use across the US we use the rolling updated 12 months electricity use published by the EIA, which means the data is very fresh, only about 3 months behind. Therefore, if its July right now, the data shows the 12 month electricity consumption up until Apr only 3 months ago. This is a change in our methodology as before we had used annual published figures. Specifically we’re using Table 5_01 here. If the link has changed, then navigate to the data page and go to “Sales” and navigate the menu as below. The last item contains two links, XLS and Interactive that lead to rolling 12 month electricity use.

Old data came from the EPA data store on residential electricity provider using these files collected annually.

For the average household electricity use in each state, we use the annual electricity sales by state compiled by the EIA. There are year-to-date figures by state, annual figures and monthly figures but no rolling annual figures so these are updated less frequently.

Lindsay Wilson
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I founded Shrink That Footprint in November 2012, after a long period of research. For many years I have calculated, studied and worked with carbon footprints, and Shrink That Footprint is that interest come to life.

I have an Economics degree from UCL, have previously worked as an energy efficiency analyst at BNEF and continue to work as a strategy consultant at Maneas.  I have consulted to numerous clients in energy and finance, as well as the World Economic Forum.

When I’m not crunching carbon footprints you’ll often find me helping my two year old son tend to the tomatoes, salad and peppers growing in our upcycled greenhouse.

1 thought on “Average Household Electricity Consumption – 2023”

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