Washington Electricity Cost Calculator
Use 11.62¢ per kWh and 969 kWh per month as a consistent Washington benchmark, then replace both with your utility data.
What the Washington numbers mean
Washington is a lower-cost state in this planning table at 11.62 cents per kilowatt-hour. Applying that price to the EIA-derived residential average of 969 kWh produces a typical variable energy charge of about $112.60 per month, or 11,628 kWh and $$1,351 per year. This is a benchmark rather than a tariff: an actual Washington bill can include fixed customer charges, tiered blocks, fuel adjustments, taxes, time-of-use periods, or demand charges.
The consumption figure places this example in the moderate-use part of this dataset. Weather, electric space or water heating, air conditioning, home size, occupancy, and efficiency explain much of the household-to-household spread. Use twelve actual billed kWh totals when sizing solar. Dollar totals alone are less reliable because a fixed charge cannot be offset by producing energy.
A south-facing, unshaded fixed array is represented by a planning production factor of 1,150 AC kWh per installed DC kW each year. At the typical annual use, that suggests roughly 10.1 kW or 26 400 W-class panels before roof-specific modeling. Shade, azimuth, tilt, snow, temperature, equipment losses, and utility export rules can move production and savings. The value is best used to create a comparison case, then replaced with a site model and contractor scope.
Sources
- EIA — Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A (2024 annual) — Rate basis for Washington.
- EIA — Form EIA-861 state residential sales and customers (2023) — Average monthly consumption basis.
- NREL — PVWatts Calculator documentation (2025) — Solar-yield modeling conventions.