Questions About Electricity...
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Question: How much electricity does a typical American home use?
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Question: How much electricity is used for lighting in the United States?
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EIA estimates that in 2007, about 526 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity were used for lighting by the residential and commercial sectors. This was equal to about 19% of the total electricity consumed by both of those sectors and 14% of total U.S. electricity consumption.
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Residential lighting consumption was about 215 billion kWh, equal to about 15% of all residential electricity consumption. About 311 billion kWh was consumed for lighting by the commercial sector, which includes commercial and institutional buildings and public street and highway lighting, equal to 23% of commercial sector electricity consumption. |
EIA does not have an estimate just for public street and highway lighting.
EIA estimates and forecasts for energy end-use and in residential and commercial sectors. |
EIA’s most recent data available (PDF) indicates that in 2002, 62 billion kWh were consumed for lighting in manufacturing facilities, which was equal to about 2% of total U.S. electricity consumption in 2002. |
Historical U.S. annual electricity consumption by sector. |
| Last updated: July 30, 2009 |
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Question: How is electricity consumed in U.S. homes?
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Question: How many coal-fired power plants are there in the U.S.?
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In 2007, 617 facilities burned coal to generate electricity: |
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476 are "power plants" owned by electric utilities and independent power producers that generate and sell electricity as their primary business; |
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141 are industrial, commercial and institutional facilities, where most of the electricity generated is consumed on-site. |
| Many of these facilities also burned other fuels, since they may have one or more generators that can burn many different fuels. |
| Number of generators and capacity by energy source, 2007
Downloadable databases by individual: Power plants or Generators
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| Last updated: March 26, 2009 |
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Question: How much electricity does a typical nuclear power plant generate?
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In 2008, the “average” nuclear power plant generated about 12.4 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh). There were 65 nuclear power plants with 104 operating nuclear reactors that generated a total of 808.97 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), or almost 20% of the nation’s electricity.
Thirty-six of those plants had two or more reactors. The smallest nuclear plant has a single reactor with 476 MW of generation capacity and the largest has three reactors with a total of 3,825 MW of capacity.
The average plant capacity factor was 91.9%. |
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| Last updated: April 1, 2009 |
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Question: How much does it cost to generate electricity with different types of power plants?
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EIA has historical data on the average annual operation, maintenance, and fuel costs for existing power plants by major fuel/energy source types. The data are presented in Mills per kilowatthour (kWh); to convert to cents per kWh, divide the values by 10.
EIA also forecasts electricity generation costs in the Annual Energy Outlook. Figure 57: Levelized Electricity Costs for New Power Plants, 2020 and 2030 in the Electricity Projections section of the Annual Energy Outlook 2009 (published in March 2009) includes estimated costs per kWh, assuming a 20-year operating life, for coal, natural gas combined cycle, wind, and nuclear power plants constructed in 2020 and 2030. Details of the forecast, including estimated capital, operation, maintenance, and other costs for most types of new power plants, are provided in the Electricity Market and the Renewable Fuels modules of the Assumptions to the Annual Energy Outlook. Details on the methodology used in the forecast are available in the National Energy Modeling System — Model Documentation Reports for the Electricity Market Module and Renewable Fuels Module.
There are also estimated levelized costs of electricity generation from biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind energy power plants in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Renewable Energy Technology Characterizations. |
| Last Reviewed: September 28, 2009 |
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Question: Does EIA publish electric utility rate, tariff, and demand charge data?
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No, EIA does not collect or publish data on electricity rates, or tariffs, for the sale or purchase of electricity, or on demand charges for electricity service.
EIA does publish retail electricity prices that are derived from data collected on revenues (in dollars) and sales (in megawatt-hours) from electric utilities. EIA’s retail electricity prices include all utility and government charges, fees, and taxes.
Individual utilities may have detailed rate/tariff schedules and demand charges. EIA is not aware of a publically available source for this information other than individual utilities.
Average annual electricity prices by class/type of customer for individual utilities are in Tables 6 to 10 of Electric Sales, Revenue and Price. |
| Last Reviewed: September 21, 2009 |
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Question: Where can I find data on electricity transmission and distribution losses?
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EIA has estimates for total annual losses related to electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) and other losses in the State Electricity Profiles.
National level data are in the U.S. Total Profile (see link a bottom left of the Profiles page). The data are in "Table 10: Supply and Disposition of Electricity" of each Profile; scroll down each Profile page to find Table 10 and see the row for Estimated Losses in the Table.
To calculate T&D losses as a percentage, divide Estimated Losses by the result of Total Disposition minus Direct Use. Direct Use electricity is electricity that is generated at facilities that is not put onto the electricity transmission and distribution grid, and therefore does not contribute to T&D losses. In 2007, national-level losses were 6.5% of total electricity disposition excluding direct use.
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| Last Updated: November 19, 2009 |
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