Electricity Usage Calculator
Estimate your home's electricity use and cost by major category using U.S. residential energy benchmarks. Adjust the details to fit your home.
Estimated Electricity Use
Usage Breakdown
Estimated share of your home's total electricity use.
How this estimate works
This is a benchmark-based planning estimate, not a meter reading or energy audit. EIA's 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) reports about 10,500 kWh/year for the average U.S. household. End-use figures are averages among homes using each end use, so the model adjusts them for the prevalence of each end use and uses the national total as a reasonableness check.
Model reference values (approximate annual kWh per household): HVAC 3,800; water heating 1,270; kitchen/cooking 300; laundry 500; general usage 4,630. These are a simplified, rounded allocation totaling 10,500 kWh/year—not a set of five direct EIA published categories. HVAC, water heating, cooking and laundry are anchored to EIA 2020 RECS detailed end-use figures and prevalence; general usage is the residual needed to reconcile the simplified groups to the national benchmark.
Adjustments: size, occupants, dwelling type, year built, insulation and usage level apply transparent heuristic multipliers. These multipliers are model assumptions, not EIA coefficients or a prediction for a specific climate. Equipment choices change which modeled categories use electricity; gas/non-electric options reduce the corresponding electrical category.
Sources: EIA: Electricity use in homes · EIA 2020 RECS Consumption & Expenditures tables · EIA Table CE5.3a: detailed household electricity end-use averages.
