What is my Monthly Energy Usage?

Calculating your home’s monthly energy usage is easy, all you need is some information about your electronic devices and a bit of basic mathematics.

All of the electronic devices in your home, no matter how big or small, add up and amount to the dollar value you find on your monthly utility bill. You might be interested in knowing how you get to that number. Being aware of what the main contributors to your utility bill are is a great step in cutting down on your energy usage. Luckily, calculating this is quite simple. Using the steps listed below you’ll know your monthly energy usage for each device.

The first step in calculating your monthly energy usage is finding the wattage of each electronic device. Most devices have a label on them that includes information about its kWh. If this is not the case then the manufacturer’s manual will have this information.

Once you have the wattage of each device you can calculate their watt hours per day. This is done by multiplying the wattage of each device by the average number of hours it is used daily. For example, let’s say that you own a 150 kWh speaker system that is used 3 hours each day.

150 x 3 = 450 watt hours per day

Now divide the watt hours per day by 1000 to arrive at the kWh per day of this device.

450 / 1000 = 0.45 kWh per day

We’re interested in knowing your monthly energy usage, so multiply the kWh per day by 30 days.

0.45 x 30 = 13.5 kWh per month

On your monthly utility bill you will find your utility provider’s kWh rate. Multiply this rate by the kWh per month of each device. For example, let’s say you pay 14 cents for every kwH.

13.5 x 0.14 = $1.89

Now you know that your home’s speaker system is costing you $1.89 per month in energy usage. This method should be used on all of the major energy using appliances in your home to see who the top consumers are. Once you have this information you will know exactly which appliances you should cut down on using to save money.

Turning off or unplugging devices when they aren’t in use is the easiest way to cut down on energy usage.