Where your electricity bill actually goes

How to read the result

The named lines are modelled from the EIA’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey, using conditional averages: the average among households that actually use electricity for that end use, not an average smeared across homes that heat with gas. That distinction is why this reconciles and why the shares quoted on most sites do not.

The final line — everything else — is lighting, electronics, cooking, laundry and plug load. It is bigger than people expect: the EIA puts it at 5,108 kWh of a typical 10,566 kWh household, about 48% of the bill. So a remainder near half is normal. It is when that slice passes roughly 60% that something specific is running unnoticed.

What normal looks like where you live

Before deciding a bill is abnormal it helps to know what a household in your part of the country actually uses. The spread is far wider than most people expect — and a figure that looks alarming against a national average can be unremarkable against a regional one.

EIA RECS 2020, table CE4.6. End-use figures are conditional means, so they do not sum to the total.
Census division	Total a year	Electric heating	Cooling	At US average rate
East South Central	13,882 kWh	3,477 kWh	2,812 kWh	$2,546
West South Central	13,609 kWh	2,482 kWh	3,873 kWh	$2,496
South Atlantic	13,089 kWh	2,401 kWh	3,112 kWh	$2,401
West North Central	10,705 kWh	3,472 kWh	1,728 kWh	$1,963
Mountain	10,500 kWh	1,795 kWh	2,918 kWh	$1,926
East North Central	9,345 kWh	2,919 kWh	1,425 kWh	$1,714
Middle Atlantic	8,275 kWh	2,287 kWh	1,483 kWh	$1,518
Pacific	7,665 kWh	1,864 kWh	1,514 kWh	$1,406
New England	7,308 kWh	1,748 kWh	1,136 kWh	$1,340
United States	10,566 kWh	2,484 kWh	2,318 kWh	$1,938

The order to check things in

Guessing which cause applies has a poor hit rate. This order is by how often each turns out to be the answer, and each step is cheap enough to do before moving to the next.

Compare kilowatt-hours, not dollars, against the same month last year. Most utilities print both. Flat kWh with higher dollars is a rate change and nothing in your house needs fixing.
Check whether the reading was estimated. Utilities sometimes estimate rather than read the meter, and a catch-up bill after several estimated months is a billing artefact, not a usage change.
Take an overnight baseline. Read the meter at bedtime and again in the morning. Divide by the hours. That is your always-on load, and it runs 8,760 hours a year.
Account for the weather. A heating or cooling degree-day swing explains most winter and summer spikes on its own, and your utility usually publishes the comparison.
Then look for a device. Only once the four above are ruled out is it worth hunting, and the profile is always the same: a compressor or a heating element, running unattended, somewhere you do not walk past.

Get your own numbers off the bill

Find the kilowatt-hours on the bill, not the dollars. It is usually near the meter reading and labelled kWh.
Divide the total amount due by those kilowatt-hours. That is your true rate, including the fixed monthly charge, and it is usually a little higher than the state average shown above.
Use a full year if you can. One month tells you about the weather; twelve tell you about the house.

Questions

Why is my electric bill so high?

In almost every case it is one of four things, in this order: electric space heating, electric water heating, air conditioning, or a single forgotten always-on appliance such as a second refrigerator in the garage. Together the first three are roughly two thirds of a typical all-electric home. This tool subtracts what those should cost from what you actually paid, and the number left over is the part worth investigating.

How much of my bill should heating and cooling be?

In a home that heats with electricity, space heating averages 2,484 kWh a year and water heating 2,706 kWh, according to the EIA’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey. Air conditioning averages 2,318 kWh among homes that run it. Those are conditional averages — the average among households that actually use electricity for that purpose, which is why they are far larger than the “share of a typical bill” figures published elsewhere.

What counts as a normal unexplained share?

Larger than most people expect: around 48%. The EIA puts “other” end uses at 5,108 kWh of a typical household’s 10,566 kWh, and that slice is lighting, electronics, cooking, laundry and plug load — dozens of small things not worth itemising one by one. So a remainder near half your bill is the normal case. Above about 60% something specific is running, and it is usually a single appliance with a heater or a compressor in it that nobody has thought about.

Does this use my actual utility rate?

It uses your state average by default. For a precise answer, divide the total on your bill by the kilowatt-hours it lists and use that — it includes the fixed monthly charge and any tariff you are on, so it is your true cost per kilowatt-hour.

Source: U.S. EIA, 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), Table CE4.6. U.S. Government work, public domain.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, June 2026. U.S. Government work, public domain.