Opinion: Something amiss about per kilowatt-hour, says Potsdam man

To the Editor:

In a recent letter, Tracy Haggett-Sloan makes the point that National Grid is trying to profit from selling electricity, stating that it “charges 20.02 cents per kilowatt-hour and the average home consumes 572 kilowatt-hours every day. You do the math.”

Well, I did the math, and 20.02 cents/kWh x 572 kWh/d x 365 d x 0.01 $/cent gives $41,978. Clearly something is amiss, and I think it’s the daily use figure. Our two-person household used 13,654 kWh in the last year, and we are all electric, using a heat pump to stay warm. That’s 37 kWh/day, which I would expect is above average.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, a government agency, in 2021 the average US home used 10,632 kWh or 29 kWh/d, while another source gave New York State use as 12,084 kWh, or 33 kWh/d. Where the 572 kWh/d figure came from remains a mystery.

Will Siegfried
Potsdam