The residential sector consists of private households. Energy is consumed primarily for space heating, water heating, air conditioning, refrigeration, cooking, clothes drying, and lighting. Fuel used for motor vehicles by household members is included in the transportation sector.
Using an equivalent measure of million British thermal units (Btu), the graph below compares the prices of fuel. The prices are also in nominal dollars to provide a better comparison. In 2021, the highest prices were for electricity at $31.51, kerosene at $23.30, heating oil at $19.11, and propane at $19.92 per million Btu. The price of natural gas was $9.02. Since the residential sector's coal consumption was small enough to round to zero for the years 1999, 2000, and 2008–2021, coal's price is shown as $0 for those years.
There are no direct fuel costs for hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, photovoltaic, or solar thermal energy, so no prices are reported.
