How to calculate energy consumption in the home

Calculating household energy consumption allows you to monitor and optimise the use of electricity in your home, reducing waste and avoiding surprises in your bill. With a simple calculation you can identify any devices or habits that negatively affect consumption and adopt more sustainable, money-saving solutions for your daily needs.

Why is it important to calculate electricity consumption?

Often, energy bill increases are the result of unconscious energy management, linked to energy consumption habits that affect costs and domestic pollutant emissions. Abnormal consumption could also be related to electrical installation failures or malfunctions that you are unaware of. This is why constantly monitoring consumption and knowledge of the factors that cause higher energy expenditure are essential for improving the energy efficiency of your home.

Daily life in the home is riddled with choices and details that contribute greatly to consumption: how many and which appliances or electronic devices are in use, at what times of day, for how long and serving how many people in the household. An intelligent calculation of electricity consumption helps you choose the best energy supply according to your energy needs and reduce your environmental impact by avoiding unnecessary waste.

Tools for calculating domestic electricity consumption

There are several methods and tools to support the calculation of electricity consumption at home. Learning how to read the electricity meter is a first step towards knowing the total energy consumption over a given period of time, but it does not provide details on which devices consume the most or how consumption varies over time. Smart meters are more advanced versions of traditional meters and provide more detailed readings, often in real time, but all meters are compatible with all suppliers.

Energy monitoring devices (energy meters) connect directly to the house's electrical panel and monitor overall energy consumption, sometimes even for individual power lines. However, their installation requires an electrician and may be expensive. For a simple and straightforward solution, you can manually calculate the energy consumption of individual appliances, but remember that you will get an overestimate. The calculation in fact uses the maximum power of the device as a reference figure and does not take into account any consumer habits, such as the use of Eco programmes for household appliances or power modulation when the appliance is in use.

Practical example of appliance consumption calculation

To calculate the power consumption of each appliance in your home, simply multiply its maximum power (expressed in Watts), which can be found on its energy label, by the number of hours it is in operation during the day. Consumption, however, is expressed on the bill in kWh, so remember that 1 kWh = 1000 W. If an appliance with a maximum output of 100W (0.1 kWh) is operated for 3 hours a day, its estimated daily energy consumption will be 0.3 kWh (0.1 kWh x 3h).

Monitoring and controlling electricity consumption

With an overall assessment of your total electricity consumption or that of each household device, you can get an initial overview of your consumption habits and reduce excess consumption with responsible and conscious choices.

Understanding and improving your consumption habits is even easier thanks to e-monitor, the intelligent dashboard available free of charge to all Enel Energia customers who have activated a home Power offer. E-monitor is the tool you can rely on to control the consumption of every household appliance and optimise electrical energy use in a simple, intuitive way.

Discover all the details on the specific page at Enel.it.