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What do you pay for electricity per kWh these days?

I would probably do solar, but I just don't like the look on the house. Tesla's solar tiles seem to be all but dead. I did a quick google, and apparently GAF makes some that don't look too bad.

I went out and cleaned the AC evaporator today -- it's never been cleaned since installed around 10 years ago. It's very difficult and a fair amount of dirt came out the fins -- we will see if it lowers kWh usage.
 
Reading some of the replies here I'm wondering why a 3,000+ sq ft. home with cooling units that are weighed by the ton? Reason being I raised 3 kids in an 1,100 sq ft home with no one complaining about not enough space.

We've been empty nesters now for a couple decades and we've been contemplating a smaller place with less space to clean, heat and cool, store stuff we'll undoubtably never use and the biggest one is to lighten the property tax burden. Checking zillow in my hood I'm constantly in amazement at the property taxes my neighbors pay on anything over 2,000 sq ft :yikes: .
 
AI told me this:

• For 3.500 kWh a year, an average household in the U.S. pays less than 1% of its income.

• For 3.500 kWh a year, an average household in Germany pays more than 4% of its income.

That’s cute, isn’t it?
 
According to the U.S. gov:
How much electricity does an American home use? - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

"In 2022, the average annual amount of electricity sold to (purchased by) a U.S. residential electric-utility customer was 10,791 kilowatthours (kWh), an average of about 899 kWh per month. Louisiana had the highest annual electricity purchases per residential customer at 14,774 kWh and Hawaii had the lowest at 6,178 kWh per residential customer
Electricity purchases may not represent the total electricity consumption for some residential electricity customers. A growing number of U.S. households have solar photovoltaic (PV) systems on their property and most of the systems are grid-connected net metered PV systems."

Note that the number quoted is average, not median.
 
Heller said:
AI told me this:

• For 3.500 kWh a year, an average household in the U.S. pays less than 1% of its income.

• For 3.500 kWh a year, an average household in Germany pays more than 4% of its income.

That’s cute, isn’t it?
Click to expand...
Both times we lived in Germany the electricity wasn't too expensive, but the water bill could get outrageous if you weren't careful (we learned to be frugal with water).
 
Regarding air conditioner energy usage:

For those of you who have never cleaned the condenser coil in the outdoor AC unit: It might be a good idea to save energy.

For those of you who have had the condenser coil cleaned: Did you see a significant reduction in energy usage?

I just did mine a couple days ago -- it was pretty dirty -- I won't know the impact until I see next month's bill.
 
Over here there is a special aluminium fin spray cleaner for the external unit, which requires hosing off, and there's a different kind for the internal unit which is safe to leave drain away.

Can't say I've ever noticed a dramatic difference, but I tend to maintain things so they don't get too bad.
 
felix_katze said:
Over here there is a special aluminium fin spray cleaner for the external unit, which requires hosing off, and there's a different kind for the internal unit which is safe to leave drain away.

Can't say I've ever noticed a dramatic difference, but I tend to maintain things so they don't get too bad.
Click to expand...

This is what I used.


Took the fan top off our York (disconnect fuse on wall and then electrical connector), then the sides come completely off. Sprayed the foam on the inside and outside of the fins, but sprayed the water on low pressure (to not bend fins) “shower” water pattern from the inside out (going the other way pushes the dirt in).

If I had to do it again, I’d use a second can after the first clean and rinse, I suspect it would clean a bit more after the major stuff was removed, but it was getting dark out so I just put it back together.

I think the foam can be used with no rinse on the evaporator on the inside unit (if you can get to it). The condensation from running the air rinses it out.

Mine had never been cleaned in 10+ years since it was installed, so hopefully it will make a difference.
 
My electric bill this month is $347.48 for a 2,426 square foot house. I used 2,678 kwh of electricity.

Last year for this period I used 2,660 kwh and it cost me $345.97 so it's about the same as last year.

It was very hot here during this period and the A/C was in full use.

For the year I used 19,361 kwh of electricity. I have gas heat so no heating is included.
 
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I went back and looked at billing history to see if there had been any recent changes, and I see that the NJ "supply" price has stayed the same at 19.8 cents/kwh, but in June 2026 the "distribution charge" went from 5.9 cents/kwh to 9.42 cents/kwh -- so total cost went from 25.7 cents to 29.3 cents. So, even if I succeed at changing suppliers (I STILL haven't been able to get through to anyone to change), they are still going to rake us over the coals on delivery.

My brother-in-law, who lives less than a mile away but is in a different city, and on a variable rate plan, saw his on-peak delivery charge go from 3.9 cents/kwh for on-peak to 12.7 cents/kwh -- just for delivery, not including the actual electricity.

It would be interesting to hear from others paying exorbitant per-kwh rates (AKA Californians :)) whether their delivery costs have increased sharply in recent months.
 
Ok, so I found where you can look at third-party providers with the "NJ Power Switch" program. The good news is that there are lots of options. The bad news is that they make it impossible to compare :yikes: :(:mad:. You have to click each individual link, and each has different entry data to see the rates for you. Sometimes it's an address, sometimes you have to put in the PSEG POD (Point of Delivery) ID -- it's a 20-digit number, it doesn't let you cut & paste into the entry, and requires you to enter it twice (a second time to confirm). Some sites have 404 errors or security warnings.

In the cases where you are able to punch in enough data to get a rate, virtually all of them are higher than the already outrageously PSEG rate. One 3rd party supplier has a "fixed rate" option, that is a couple cents higher than PSEG, and a "variable rate" that is 7 cents cheaper than PSEG -- but it can vary every month, and reports are that it increases sharply in the first few months so you end up paying much more than the PSEG rates.

If anyone wants to see intentional obfuscation in action, here it is :thumbsup: ==> NJ Power Switch | Licensed Third |Party Suppliers
 
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