Average Electricity Bills in Japan: Guides by Household Size and What to Review If Yours Is High

Guide to electricity bills by household size

These guide figures are based on electricity usage by household size from the Ministry of the Environment's survey of household CO2 emissions. Costs are calculated on TEPCO Energy Partner's Juryo Dento B metered plan with a 30 A contract, a renewable energy levy of ¥3.98 and a fuel cost adjustment of ¥0.

Doubling the number of people doesn't double usage. Many appliances are shared, such as the fridge, lights and air conditioner, so per person, living alone is the most expensive.

Bills vary 1.7 times by season

Even with the same lifestyle, heating and cooling create peaks in summer and winter. Here's a household averaging 300 kWh a month over the year (¥12,257 in an average month), allocated to guide amounts by billing month.

There's a 1.7-fold gap between February, the highest, and June, the lowest. Meters are read and billed for the previous month, so midwinter electricity shows up on February and March bills, and midsummer electricity on September bills. "Higher than last month" can often be explained by the seasonal peak, so compare with the same month last year rather than the previous month.

Appliances to look at if your bill is high

Listing monthly costs by appliance under typical use (at ¥31/kWh), the top spots are almost all appliances that make or move heat.

By contrast, a Wi-Fi router (¥179 a month), phone charging (¥18.6 a month) and one LED bulb (¥44.6 a month) have very little effect on your budget even if you switch them off or cut back. If your bill is above average, the shortcut is to start with the items in the table above that you use every day.

How much replacing or switching saves

Here are the effects of common switches, calculated at ¥31/kWh. For items with an upfront cost, the table also shows how many months (or years) the savings take to pay it back.

LED bulbs pay for themselves in about six months, so any remaining incandescent bulbs are worth replacing right away. Changing how you use a bathroom dryer or heater has no upfront cost and can save over ¥30,000 a year.

A fridge, on the other hand, saves ¥8,303 a year, but recovering a ¥150,000 replacement through electricity alone takes about 18 years. Rather than replacing it just for the bill, the realistic approach is to pick an energy-efficient model when you replace it anyway because of a breakdown or a move.

Compare your home's bill with the average

1. 1

   Enter the usage from your meter slip

   On the "Look up from your bill" tab of the Electricity Cost Calculator, enter your monthly usage (kWh) to see where it falls among the guide figures by household size.

2. 2

   Check the seasonal pattern

   Treating your usage as an average month for the year, a chart shows guide figures for each month. You can tell whether this month's bill is a seasonal peak or overuse.

3. 3

   Recalculate from the big appliances

   The quick-reference table on the "Calculate by appliance" tab is sorted from highest monthly cost down. Change the hours to match how you use each appliance and see which ones make up most of your bill.

How to read the breakdown of your bill is explained in detail in the electricity bill breakdown, and choosing winter heating in comparing electricity costs of heaters. When splitting utilities with someone you live with, see also how to split living costs.

FAQ

What's the average electricity bill for someone living alone?

About ¥7,600 on monthly usage of 185 kWh (calculated on TEPCO EP's Juryo Dento B with a 30 A contract and a fuel cost adjustment of ¥0). It's about ¥10,000 in winter and drops into the ¥6,000s in spring and fall. A 20 A contract lowers the base charge by ¥311.75 a month, to about ¥7,300. All-electric homes and cold regions run higher.

What's the average electricity bill for a family of four?

About ¥13,500 on monthly usage of 327 kWh. Fridges and lights are shared even as the household grows, so the gap from a two-person household (about ¥11,100) is only about ¥2,400. Winter billing months (January to March) run 1.2 to 1.3 times higher, in the ¥15,000 to ¥17,000 range.

Why did my electricity bill suddenly go up?

There are three common reasons. First is the seasonal peak: a February bill is around 1.3 times the annual average. Second is changes in the fuel cost adjustment rate or the end of government subsidies, which raise the bill for the same usage. Third is starting to use a high-power appliance such as an oil heater or bathroom dryer. First compare your usage (kWh) with the same month last year, and if it hasn't risen, suspect a change in rates.

What saves the most on electricity?

Changing how you use high-power appliances. Switching from a bathroom dryer to drying in a drum machine (heat pump) saves about ¥30,000 a year, and switching from a heater to air conditioner heating saves about ¥39,000 a year. Replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs pays back in about six months. Cutting standby power or phone charging saves only a few hundred yen a year.

Will a new fridge lower my electricity bill?

It will, but paying back takes time. Replacing a 400 L class fridge over 10 years old (about 570 kWh a year) with a recent model (about 300 kWh) saves ¥8,303 a year, but recovering the ¥150,000 cost takes about 18 years. It's realistic to choose an energy-efficient model when you replace it because of a breakdown or a move.