What is the average consumption of killowatts by an american household?

Question

on how stuff works they say its about 14,000 per day but that would amount to 1400$ per day in electricity(with 10 cents in kwh), we dont pay that much so I must have gotten something wrong here, even because afterwards they say that a house consuming 100 kwh per day would pay about 24 cents a day. Im really confused, thank you very much for your help. link:http://www.howstuffworks.com/question418.htm

Answer 1

You are mixing up watts and kilowatts.

1000 watts = 1 kilowatt.

The average North American home uses about 1000 watts at any given time, or 1 kilowatt.  Electricity is sold in units of kilowatt hours, which is 1000 watts for 1 hour.  Therefore, the average home uses about 24 kilowatt hours of electricity in a 24 hour period.  If your power rate is 10 cents per Kwh, then you are paying about 10 cents per hour or $2.40 per day - more if your home is electrically heated and you live in Fairbanks or Winnipeg  in January.

Answer 2

The average household in America consumes about 14,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy.

What the heck is a kilowatt hour?

Before we see how much electricity costs, we have to understand how it's measured. When you buy gas they charge you by the gallon. When you buy electricity they charge you by the kilowatt-hour (kWh). When you use a 1 kilowatt appliance for 1 hour, that's a kilowatt-hour. If you used it for two hours that would be 2 kWh.

Most things don't draw an even kilowatt, though. A typical central AC draws about 3.5 kilowatts, so in an hour it uses 3.5 kilowatt-hours. And a 100-watt light bulb uses 0.1 kW, since 1000 watts = 1 kilowatt.

    Most utility companies charge a higher rate when you use more than a certain amount of energy, and they also charge more during summer months when electric use is higher. As an example, here are the residential electric rates for Austin, Texas.

* First 500 kilowatts

   - 5.8¢ per kilowatt hour (kWh)

* Additional kilowatts (May-Oct.)

   - 10¢ per kilowatt hour

* Additonal kilowatts (Nov.-Apr.)

   -8.3¢ per kilowatt hour.

Say nobody goes over the limit, and they're charged at the 5.8¢ per kWh for one year, and the average is 14,000 kWh.  Multiplying 0.058 by 14,000 would yield about $1000/year in electric costs, which is about right.

Answer 3

"The average household in the United States uses about 8,900 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year."

there are 9000 hours in a year.

so 9e3 kwatt-hour/9e3 = about 1kw

average usage, averaged over time, is 1000 watts.

At 10¢ per kw-hr, that is 10¢ per hour, or $2.40 per day or $900 per year.

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/BoiL...

now to look at your reference and see how it compares:

they say 14,400 watt-hours per day which is 14400/24 = 600 watts average, compared to 1000 from my source. close enough.

the "24 cents a day right now, or $91 a year" is PER 100 WATTS as they say clearly. so if you use 1000 watts on average, that is $2.40 per day or $900 per year, which matches my source.