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How to read your home energy bill: units, charges, and the average price
Every figure on this site traces back to bills like yours — so here is the bill itself, decoded. The four things that confuse people are the units (kWh, therms, CCF, Mcf, gallons), the fixed customer charge hiding inside the per-unit price, the difference between your tariff and EIA's average price, and the fact that delivered fuels don't bill monthly at all. Each is explained with EIA's published U.S. averages as the worked example.
The units, in one place
| Unit | What it measures | Conversions (EIA) |
|---|---|---|
| Kilowatt-hour (kWh) | Electricity — 1 kW drawn for one hour | 1 kWh = 3,412 Btu |
| Therm | Heat in natural gas | 1 therm = 100,000 Btu |
| CCF | 100 cubic feet of gas, as metered | 1 CCF ≈ 1.037 therms |
| Mcf | 1,000 cubic feet of gas — EIA's table unit | 1 Mcf ≈ 10.37 therms = 1.036 MMBtu |
| Gallon (heating oil) | Delivered fuel oil | 1 gallon = 138,500 Btu |
| Gallon (propane) | Delivered LPG | 1 gallon = 91,452 Btu |
Anatomy of an electric bill
- The customer charge. A fixed monthly fee for the meter, the service drop, and billing — owed at zero usage. It is the reason your bill never reaches $0 and the reason EIA's average price (total revenue ÷ total kWh) sits above most tariffs' energy rate.Fixed
- The energy charge. Your kWh times the per-kWh rate — the part that scales with usage, and the part time-of-use plans split into peak and off-peak prices.Per kWh
- Riders, trackers, and taxes. Fuel-cost adjustments, infrastructure riders, and local taxes, itemized or folded in depending on the state. They are inside EIA's revenue-based average too.
The worked example: the average U.S. home used 863 kWh a month in 2024, and EIA's average residential price was 16.48¢ per kWh. Multiply them and you get $142.22 — within rounding of EIA's published average bill of $142.26. That is what "average price" means on every page of this site: the whole bill, fixed charges included, divided by the whole usage.
Enter your own kWh and therms and price them at your state’s published average rates — the fastest way to see whether your bill is high because of price or because of usage.
Open the energy cost calculatorAnatomy of a gas bill — and the delivered-fuel exception
A gas bill meters volume (CCF) and bills heat (therms): the utility converts your CCF to therms with a measured heat-content factor, then applies the per-therm price. To compare with this site's state table, divide the Mcf price by 10.37 — the U.S. average of $14.50 per Mcf is about $1.40 per therm. Heating oil and propane skip the monthly bill entirely: you are billed per delivery, gallons times the day's price, which is why this site prices those fuels by the tank fill instead of the month.
The three checks worth doing on any bill
- Separate price from usage. Divide the total by the units to get your effective per-kWh or per-therm price, and compare the two halves separately against your state's averages in the state guides. A high bill is usually a usage story, not a price story.
- Compare like months. Bills are seasonal — January and July are not the average month in any state. Judge a bill against the same month last year before judging it against an annual average.
- Find the fixed floor. Your customer charge times twelve is the part of your annual cost no conservation measure can touch; everything above it is negotiable with your own usage.
Sources: EIA — Electric Sales, Revenue & Average Price 2024, Table 5A (Form EIA-861) · EIA — Natural Gas Annual 2024, Table 23 (Form EIA-176) · EIA — Energy Explained: British thermal units (conversion factors). Researched October 2026 — energy prices move with seasons and markets; confirm the current rate on your own bill.
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The average utility bill, broken down · Electricity prices by state · Heat pump vs gas furnace