1 in 3 Households Challenged In Meeting Energy Needs

(October 1, 2018) — Nearly one-third of U.S. households, 31%, reported facing a challenge in paying energy bills or sustaining adequate heating and cooling in their homes in 2015. According to the most recent results from the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Residential Energy Consumption Survey, about one in five households reported reducing or forgoing necessities such as food and medicine to pay an energy bill, and 14% reported receiving a disconnection notice for energy service. Households may also use less energy than preferred, and 11% surveyed reporting homes were kept at an unhealthy or unsafe temperature.

The 2015 survey asked about these and other challenges, including paying energy bills and repairing broken equipment in the home. Households experiencing these circumstances, often considered components of household energy security, may be making difficult financial tradeoffs about which basic needs to fulfill, notes EIA.

The questionnaire captured both the occurrence of household energy insecurity and the severity of household energy insecurity in 2015, measured by the frequency of energy insecure events lasting anywhere from a few weeks to most of the year. Of the 25 million households that reported forgoing food and medicine to pay energy bills, 7 million faced that decision nearly every month. Of the 17 million households that reported receiving a disconnection notice, 2 million reported that they received a notice nearly every month.

Occasionally, households may lose the use of heating or air-conditioning equipment entirely. This situation can occur when equipment breaks and a household cannot afford to fix it or when a household cannot afford fuel. Seven million households, 6% of the national total, reported the inability to use heating equipment because of financial constraints at some point in 2015, and 6 million, or 5%, of households reported loss of air conditioning. These issues occurred during a year when the overall energy-related expenditure level was at this lowest point in more than a decade, EIA observes.

The agency found only minor differences across geographic regions of the country and between rural respondents. These differences suggest that the structural features of a home and demographic characteristics are more likely to be associated with a household’s ability to afford energy and maintain equipment than geography and associated climates.

For instance, households that included children, that had residents who identified with a minority racial group or as Hispanic, or that were classified as low income, experienced more energy insecurity. Households experiencing energy insecurity were also more likely to be those where homes were built before 1990. Additional information on household energy insecurity and energy usage in homes is available in the 2015 Residential Energy Consumption Survey reports, tables, and a public-use microdata file. To access them visit eia.gov/consumption/residential/ data/2015/.

(SOURCE: The Weekly Propane Newsletter, October 1, 2018. For more information or to subscribe, click Subscriptions tab above.)