In U.S. homes, electric water heating, electric space heating, pool pumps, EV charging and air conditioning each average more than 2,000 kWh a year in the homes that have them, the highest averages in the EIA’s detailed appliance tables. Those figures come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), the federal survey of how American homes use energy. For scale, the EIA says the average U.S. residential customer bought 10,791 kWh of electricity in 2022.
Each figure below is the EIA’s average in “kWh per household using the end use,” so homes without that appliance aren’t counted in its average. A home without electric water heating, for example, doesn’t count toward the water heating figure.
Average yearly electricity use by appliance
| Appliance or end use | Average kWh per year (EIA RECS 2020) |
|---|---|
| Water heating (electric) | 2,706 |
| Space heating (electric, main and secondary) | 2,484 |
| Pool pumps | 2,384 |
| Electric vehicle charging | 2,363 |
| Air conditioning (includes evaporative coolers) | 2,318 |
| Hot tub heaters | 1,479 |
| Dehumidifiers | 999 |
| Refrigerators, all in the home | 839 |
| Most-used refrigerator | 617 |
| Second refrigerator | 494 |
| Clothes dryers | 680 |
| Lighting | 654 |
| TVs and related equipment | 632 |
| Most-used TV | 210 |
| Separate freezers | 570 |
| Hot tub pumps | 484 |
| Air handler fans for cooling | 457 |
| Cooking (ranges, cooktops and ovens) | 290 |
| Air handler fans for heating | 233 |
| Ceiling fans | 226 |
| Humidifiers | 139 |
| Dishwashers | 112 |
| Microwaves | 107 |
| Clothes washers | 69 |
All rows: EIA RECS 2020 tables CE5.3a and CE5.3b, kWh per household using the end use. The EIA’s notes say “TVs and related” includes cable and satellite boxes, DVRs, streaming devices, game consoles, disc players and home theater or audio systems; cooking excludes microwaves and small kitchen appliances; electricity from on-site solar panels is included; and small amounts of standby power for devices a household has but doesn’t use are not.
Why your numbers will differ
Climate moves heating and cooling the most. The same EIA table shows air conditioning averaging 4,173 kWh a year in hot-humid climates and 902 kWh in the marine climate zone, and 3,304 kWh in the South against 1,395 kWh in the Northeast. Electric space heating averages 3,109 kWh in the Midwest. The EIA says RECS data “consistently indicate that air conditioning is the largest use of electricity in homes.”
Home size and type matter too. In single-family detached homes, electric space heating averages 2,994 kWh and air conditioning 2,775 kWh. In apartments in buildings with five or more units, the figures are 1,240 kWh and 1,175 kWh.
These are 2020 averages. They describe the mix of appliances people owned then, not a new model. For a specific product, its own label or listing is the better guide, and a measurement in your home is better still.
How to turn watts into kWh and cost
A watt is power at one moment; a kilowatthour is energy over time. The EIA puts it this way: “One Watthour is the energy of one Watt used for one hour,” and “if you use a 40-Watt (0.04 kW) light bulb for five hours, you have used 200 Wh, or 0.2 kWh.”
So for any appliance:
- kWh = watts × hours of use ÷ 1,000. Use the wattage on the appliance’s rating label or manual.
- Cost = kWh × your price per kWh. Take the price from your own electric bill, including any time-of-use rates, rather than a national average.
The formula is only as good as the hours you put into it. If you don’t know how long an appliance actually runs, the survey averages above or a direct measurement are a better guide than a guess.
Measure your own appliances
For a 120V appliance that plugs into an ordinary outlet, a plug-in usage meter shows accumulated kWh and elapsed time. The plug-in meter review covers its limits, how long to measure each kind of appliance and how to turn a reading into a yearly figure. Hardwired and 240-volt loads such as water heaters, dryers, ranges and heat pumps need circuit-level monitoring instead; the high-draw appliance monitor guide sorts out which meter fits which load.
Compare your result with the matching row in the table above. To find devices that draw power while switched off, see the standby power guide .
Sources
- U.S. Energy Information Administration: RECS 2020 consumption and expenditure tables
- EIA: Table CE5.3a, household site electricity end-use consumption, part 1, averages (XLSX)
- EIA: Table CE5.3b, household site electricity end-use consumption, part 2, averages (XLSX)
- EIA: How much electricity does an American home use?
- EIA: Measuring electricity
- EIA: Use of electricity
- EIA: About EIA
Figures were taken from the EIA tables on October 9, 2026. The EIA was established under the Department of Energy Organization Act as the federal government’s independent authority for energy statistics and analysis.