It is helpful to know the impact of decisions for your home when focusing on lowering energy consumption. One of the best indicators is the electric bill.
The bill is determined by monitoring how many kilowatt hours have been used over the last month. Price per kilowatt hour ranges from $0.073 (North Dakota) all the way up to $0.31 (Hawaii) with an US average $0.112 (data from the US Energy Information Administration).
Using this information the average American will pay approximately $4 to run a 50W light bulb all hours of the day for a month. By comparison an AC unit (3500W) running 5 hours a day will cost around $58 a month. To determine the monthly cost of an item use the following formula:
Cost per month = Wattage x Hours of use per month / 1000 x Cost per Kilowatt
With this info you will have an idea of what items to target the most when trying to save energy. But you won't be able to decipher what the actual usage of each item on your energy bill. The best way to track progress is to compare the total energy used from the current month to the same month as last year.
On my energy bill it lists each month's energy usage for the last year. One very noticeable month is July in 2010. The air conditioner had a leak and doubled the energy bill all by itself.
Note: Not all energy companies measure energy use every month even though they will bill you every month. In these cases they will bill based on an estimate from last years usage and make a correction every 2-3 months when the actual usage is recorded.
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