How to Calculate the Electricity Cost for a Residential Home With a Spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a good way to keep track of expenses, including the cost of electricity for your home. Keeping a spreadsheet helps you analyze past expenses and calculate projected costs for the future. It can help you determine what factors are affecting your electricity costs for your residential home, and from that you can adjust your lifestyle to cut down electrical costs. A spreadsheet is a grid with columns and rows and can be set up on paper or online. Every space on the grid is called a cell. Free online applications are available through Google Docs and other websites. Online spreadsheets also are often included in office software bundles including Microsoft Office.
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Instructions
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Set up your spreadsheet. Create a grid with 13 rows and four or more columns. Label each column with a year: 2009, 2010, 2011. The last column is for the total. Label each row with a month. The first row is January, second February, third March and so on. The last row is the total.
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Enter amounts for each cell. For example, under the column for 2009 and row January, you should enter the amount of your residential electric bill for January 2009. Add the totals for each column to calculate the annual cost of electricity for each year; add the totals for each row to get the total cost per month over the past years.
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Analyze the results. Divide the last number in each column (that's the cell that shows the yearly total) by 12 to find the average cost per month for that year. Divide the last number in each row (that's the cell for the monthly total) by the number of columns to get the average cost for that month over the years.
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Determine factors that are affecting the electricity cost for your residential home. Depending on the climate, heating and cooling your home can consume the most energy. A 2007 audit by Austin Energy, for example, found that air conditioning accounts for up to 70 percent of the average residential electrical costs in the summer. Appliances and electronics average about 10 percent each. Look for Energy Star ratings for appliances that consume less energy.
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Create another spreadsheet listing the factors that use up electricity: air conditioning, heating, compuuter, lighting, appliances, and so on. Keep track of how many hours each factor is in use every month so you can see how each factor affects your residential electrical costs.
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Tips & Warnings
Many electrical companies offer free energy audits. A service person will come out and inspect your home and give you tips for lowering your electric bill.
References
Resources
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