Utility Bill Analysis Tool

What is the Utility Bill Analysis Tool?

This Utility Bill Analysis provides a step-by-step guide and a template to track your electricity use over the years. It also plots your average usage over temperature, which will give a better understanding of how your usage is affected by changes in temperature. Tracking your electricity usage can be used to better understand how your usage has changed over the years and can help budget and plan for future costs. Tracking your energy usage patterns can also help you decided if integrating other forms of energy such as solar and wind is right for you.  Following these few steps outlined below will help you understand your energy usage pattern over the years.

How to Use this Tool

You can download the "Utility Bill Analysis Tool" from the Penn State Extension website. After you download the spreadsheet, you can easily input your electricity data from your utility provider to analyze your daily use trends and compare your energy usage to average daily temperatures.

Note: Your electricity provider will share at least 2 years of electricity data with you, please contact your utility provider for more information.

Step #1: Input Electricity Data

Following the instructions on the "Electric Bill Sheet" input electric data into the tool. Locate your past electric bills and input the data in the template. The more information you can input the better because it will give you a better understanding of your energy usage patterns In. In the section labeled "Input", put in these 4 pieces of information: filter the correct dates, input your billing date, amount billed, and monthly electricity usage. 

Output
After you've completed Step #1, the tool gives a graph of the average electricity usage over the years. Each color corresponds to a certain year, and the legend under the graph indicates which color is which year. This graph gives you a general idea of how your electricity use changes each month and it also helps establish patterns of your electricity usage over the years.

Bonus! Weather-Based Relationships

Want to see how your electricity usage changes as the weather changes? Have a look at the yellow tab titled "Weather-based Relationship". You can pick a location close to your farm using the dropdown menu next to the "Pick Location" cell. This tool uses your utility bill information from 2020.

Output
After you've selected your location, the tool gives a graph of the average electricity monthly usage versus. This gives you an idea of how your electricity usage changes as the temperature changes. Having this information can help your plan and budget out costs for the year.

Other Information

If you would like to learn more about how to read, interpret, and analyze your utility bill, visit the corresponding fact sheet on the Penn State Extension website, " Understanding and Analyzing Your Utility Bills ", along with the "Utility Rate Comparison Tool".

Prepared by Adira Nair, Student in Biological Engineering, and Siobhan L. Fathel, Assistant Teaching Professor, The Pennsylvania State University,

Funded with support from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Energy Programs.

This tool is provided for general informational purposes only and The Pennsylvania State University shall have no liability whatsoever.