Latest U.S. Electric Rates by State

I pay about $50 a month in Colorado for 200 kWh.
$30 connection fee, and 9 cents a kWh

 

PG&E rates are tiered so if you are on Tiers 1 & 2, you will average $0.12/kWh. However, most people I know are Tier 3 and 4. I think this chart just takes the first tier and call it a day for California.

 

Yup. No way residential average is this low in CA.

 

Well if you are Sagebrush and average 200 kWh a month, then you could average $0.12/kWh in CA. And the only people that can pull that off that I know of are DINK's because they are not home and barely use electricity during weekdays.

 

11,000 kWh per year is the average in the U.S. for residential consumers. We are right on average and after solar net out at zero. If not for solar, we would probably be paying close to $0.25/kWh after adjusting for tiered use here in the land of PG&E.

How much electricity does an American home use? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

 

Now you know someone who is not -- dual income anyway. Kids are out of the house. Come to think of it, since I work part time and my wife does not work, it is fair to say that someone is home probably 22 hours a day. In my defense the current consumption is in a home we rent. Our native home was running more along 100 kWh a month in the year before we moved.

To clarify though, my original post was only meant to say that connection fees can be expensive and change the "cost per kWh" quite a bit by the time the bill is paid. If the interest is in marginal unit rates then the connection fee does not matter.

 

You... are an enigma.

$30 seems high for connection fees. Elon Musk's moonlighting gig (Solar City) quoted me $6 for connection fees for PG&E after PV installation. It was impressive that in 2012 when I purchased the PiP, they told me electricity costs of under $100 a month will not pay back under their solar lease program and didn't even bother to come out to quote me. 3 years, later they came out, looked at my home, and showed a $10 monthly savings under the current plans. That's a pretty good improvement in 3 years. $10 a month is not worth the hassle and liability for installation so I guess I will have to wait a little while longer.

 

Nah.
We just do not subscribe to the "convenience at all costs" American creed. Look around outside N. America for a less skewed look at rational electricity consumption. Now admittedly our personal home per capita consumption is lower than international too, but not by extra-ordinary amounts. The differences are mostly explained by locale. Think of my home as China average.

A couple years ago when I was learning efficient use and to not waste electricity, I thought 50 kWh per month in my house was obtainable. I never even came close, but along with the fridge, our electric cooking was something of a fixed cost I could not overcome. I did not write this website, but Mr. Bluejay and I seem to be twins.

 

If there is a main lesson to be gleaned from comparable advanced economies, it’s probably that the secret to lower kWh use is in downsizing (as opposed to other efficiency or frugality gains).

It looks like the average U.S. residence size is ~2x that of European countries:

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Room to swing a cat? Hardly

International House Sizes


Also, U.S. summer temperatures are significantly higher than in Europe, Canada, and Australia driving more use of air conditioning - a very large chunk of electricity use:



Sage, what is your home sq. ft? How do your summer temps/humidity compare to the U.S. average?

It would be interesting to see how heating energy consumption varies compared to these countries by total and sq. ft..

Agree with the problem of attitude of "convenience at all costs".

 

Home in Albuquerque is 2800 Sft, while home in SW Colorado is 3800. We do not use all of the rooms in the Colorado home so it seems about right to call them similar. Low humidity and sunny high desert climate. Here is some climate data:

I can see how the data leads to that suspicion but I'm pretty sure that it is just an association. The real seekret sauce is multi-home buildings. The shared walls and ceilings do wonders for energy conservation.

 

With those house sizes you must be working some frugal magic.

Lower humidity at both places would help as would below average summer temps at your SW Colorado home. But around Albuquerque, looks like close to national average summer temps.

Looks like it takes more total yearly energy in colder SW Colorado to regulate home temperature than warmer Albuquerque.

As it pertains to green house gas emissions, would be interesting to see how we compare in the U.S. to the cooler climates in Canada and Europe for winter heating energy use.

 

I wish my wand opened and closed windows, but alas it is me (or my wife) who spend the better part of 5 minutes a day at the task in the summer.

Figure 2.5 hours a month of effort to avoid 500 kWh of A/C cooling. Someone is a 200 kW monster.