Households in the hot and humid Southwest, an area that includes Houston, spend 27 percent of their home energy budgets on air conditioning, the most anywhere in the United States.
The U.S. Department of Energy, using data from 2015, reported Monday that the cost of cooling the hottest part of the nation works out to $525 per year.
Nationwide, the average family spent $265 on air conditioning in 2015, or 12 percent of their total home energy consumption.
In drier regions on the West Cost where nearly half of households do not use air conditioning, residents paid just $60 a year for cooling.
The average household spent $1,856 on home energy bills in 2015, the agency reported.
About 60 percent of households had central air conditioning as of 2015.
It has become a common feature in new homes, and older homes are getting retrofitted. Sixty-seven percent of homes built in the 1970s had central air conditioning in 2015 compared to just half 25 years ago.
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