End-Use Consumption of Electricity 2001

Electricity is consumed for a wide variety of uses in the home. This web product presents a detailed account of the amount of electricity used to operate numerous appliances in 2001.

Similar analyses were conducted for the 1987, 1990, 1993, and 1997 RECS. Table 1 summarizes the results.

Table 1. Percent of Electricity Consumption by End Use

Summary Results for 2001 RECS:

• The largest use of electricity in the average U.S. household was for appliances (including refrigerators and lights), which consume approximately two thirds of all the electricity used in the residential sector (Figure 1, Table 2);

• Air-conditioning accounted for an estimated 16 percent, space heating 10 percent, and water heating 9 percent;

• No single appliance dominated the use of electricity. Refrigerators consumed the most electricity (14 percent of total electricity use for all purposes), followed by lighting (9 percent), clothes dryers (6 percent), freezers (3 percent), and color TV’s (3 percent);

• The many other electrical appliances are grouped together and their total consumption is shown as "All Others" (Figure 1). Included are some appliances, such as VCR's that typically are found in almost all homes but use small amounts of electricity, as well as appliances that use large amounts of electricity but are found in relatively few homes, such as swimming pool pumps;

• "Residual" includes appliances for which RECS did not collect data (irons, hair dryers, electric blankets, power tools, and many more) and errors in the estimation procedure.

The 2001 RECS estimates are air-conditioning 16 percent, space heating 10 percent, water heating 9 percent, and appliances 65 percent. Changes in the percentages reflect actual changes in the percentages, changes in the methodology used to estimate the amount of electricity used for the various end uses, and errors in the estimation procedure. An example where a change in methodology resulted in a large change is the estimated amount of electricity used for cooking. The 1997 end-use and appliance table used a regression-based estimate and an outside estimate of the amount of electricity used in microwave ovens. The 2001 end-use and appliance table did not use a regression estimate. It used outside estimates of the amount of electricity used in electricity ranges, electric ovens, microwave ovens, electric toaster ovens, and coffee makers.