Where does your energy come from? Analyzing your energy bill

Mary Savina, Faculty Career Enhancement Project at ACM Associated Colleges of the Midwest

In this activity students trace the sources of their electricity, heating and cooling, and other components of their energy use though the use of their family's utility bills and information from utility and government websites.

Click to View

Notes from our reviewers

The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness. Read what our review team had to say about this resource below or learn more about how CLEAN reviews teaching materials.

Students must contact their families to get a copy of a recent energy bill. Since this could take several weeks, it is best that this task gets assigned at the beginning of the semester, far in advance of doing this activity. As an alternative, students may be able to access energy consumption from their school through facilities management. A common source of confusion comes from the variety of energy sources used for electricity, heating and cooling. Some students will come from households where climate control - as well as lights, etc. - is all electric. Others will have energy bills that are split between electric units (such as kWH) and thermal units (such as BTU). Ask students to convert everything into kWh.
Data on energy sources from different states and countries (represented by where students are from) form the basis for discussions about energy sources, including their environmental, societal and economic advantages and disadvantages. For undergraduate students who do not have access to their family's energy bills, analysis of their college's or university's energy consumption in aggregate or per building may be accessible. Confronts the misconceptions that electricity generation and cost across the US and world is "the same." Comments from expert scientist: Instructor provides good explanations re what is expected of students taking this class.
Personalized to each student, this activity engages them in using quantitative skills and research to explore energy consumption. Can be used as a stand-alone assignment for a unit or be used as part of a final exam for a course. As written, this is a college level activity; however, using local data and not requiring energy unit conversions, this activity could be adapted for middle and high school students.