On average, households in the United States were billed $1.04 per square foot for energy usage across all energy sources in 2020. Those households identifying as energy insecure were billed $0.20 more per square foot than the national average and $0.26 more on average than households that did not experience energy insecurity. Household energy insecurity is the inability to adequately meet basic household energy needs and describes households who face challenges in purchasing the energy they need because of cost. For our Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), energy insecurity is a measure we use to count households that have received a disconnection notice, have reduced or forgone basic necessities to pay energy bills, kept their houses at unsafe temperatures because of energy cost concerns, or been unable to repair heating or cooling equipment because of cost.
