November 7, 2010

Residential Consumption of Electricity and Fuels

American households spend a significant amount of money on heating and cooling of our homes as well as electricity to run our appliances, power out TVs and heat our water.   I thought it would be interesting to look at energy consumption and usage for U.S. households in general.  

Primary source of information I found was the 2005 Residential Energy Consumption Survey from the Department of Energy

Total expenditures by fuels used

Fuels used in billions for 2005
Electricity = $124.7B
Natural Gas = $52.34
Fuel Oil = $12.75
Kerosene  = $0.24
LPG  = $11

Primary heating fuel usage varies a lot from state to state.   The census has data on house heating fuel by state.

Total Expenditures for space heating by fuel used

Total = $56.73B

Electricity = $7.42
Natural Gas = $31.97
Fuel Oil = $10.75
Kerosene = $0.24
LPG = $6.35

Electricity consumption by use in 2001 from DOE

I reproduced their graph here:


Air conditioning expenditures for 2005

91 million out of 111 million or 82% of households had AC and spent a total of $25.3B

Spending per household

The BLS.gov Consumer Expenditure Survey will give us data on the average spending per household.

In 2009 spending was $483 for natural gas, $1377 for electricity and $141 for fuel oil and other fuels.   Of course not all houses spend money on all of these.  

Note:  The figures here do not include energy used for automobiles, industrial or commercial uses so the national usage figures will be much higher.

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