How do I calculate my electricity cost?

Multiply the watts by the hours used, divide by 1,000 to get kilowatt hours, then multiply by your rate. The tool does all of it once you put your own rate in.

Where do I find my electricity rate?

Divide the electricity charge on your bill by the kilowatt hours used on the same bill. That gives your effective rate, which is more useful than a figure from a tariff table.

What is a kilowatt hour?

One thousand watts running for one hour. A 1,000 watt heater on for an hour uses one unit, and so does a 100 watt lamp left on for ten hours.

What uses the most electricity in a UAE home?

Air conditioning, by a long way, for most of the year. Water heating is second in winter and close to nothing in summer.

Why is my bill higher in summer than the usage suggests?

Because charges are banded. When your monthly usage rises, the last units fall into a higher band, so your effective rate goes up as well as your consumption.

Does switching things off at the wall really help?

A little. Standby is real but small next to air conditioning and water heating. Do the big things first and treat this as tidying up.

Electricity Cost Calculator

Power

From the appliance label, or your total household draw.

Hours a day

hrs

How many

Your electricity rate

AED/kWh

Divide the electricity charge on your bill by the kWh used.

Days a month it runs

Months a year it runs

Set to 6 for something used only in summer.

Your answer

Cost a month

AED 0

Put your own rate in above and this fills in.

Units a day: 14.4 kWh
Units a month: 432 kWh
Cost a day: AED 0
Cost a year: AED 0
Units a year: 5184 kWh

Your effective rate rises as your usage rises, because charges are banded. Work it out from a summer bill for a realistic summer figure.

Electricity Cost Calculator for Dubai and the UAE

This tool works out what electricity costs at your own rate. Put in the power of what you are running and the hours it runs, and it gives you the cost per day, month and year.

The rate is yours, taken from your own bill. We do not put a number in for you, because electricity here is charged in bands and the rate that applies depends on how much you use.

It works for a single appliance or for a whole household figure, whichever you have.

How to find your real rate

This is the number that makes the whole tool honest, and it takes two minutes.

Take your electricity bill. Find the electricity charge and the number of kilowatt hours used. Divide one by the other.

That gives your effective rate: what one more unit of electricity actually costs you.

Do it this way rather than reading a single figure from a tariff table, because charges here are banded. The more you use in a month, the higher the band your last units fall into.

This is why a summer bill and a winter bill can give you different effective rates from the same household. For planning a summer, use a summer bill.

What a kilowatt hour is

A kilowatt hour is one thousand watts running for one hour. It is the unit the bill charges by.

So a 1,000 watt heater running for an hour uses one unit. A 100 watt bulb running for ten hours uses the same one unit.

That is the useful way to think about it. Power times time. A small thing running constantly can cost more than a big thing running briefly.

A kettle is 2,000 watts, which sounds enormous, but it runs for three minutes. That is a tenth of a unit.

An air conditioner at 1,800 watts running for ten hours is eighteen units, on one unit, in one day.

Where a UAE household bill goes

Rough order for a home here, and it is not the same as a cool climate.

Air conditioning
The largest item by a long way for most of the year. Everything else is a footnote next to it in August.
Water heating
Second in winter, and close to nothing in summer when the tank water is already warm.
The fridge
Small draw but it never stops, so it adds up quietly all year.
Washing and drying
A tumble dryer is one of the heaviest appliances in a home. Line drying costs nothing and works quickly here.
Kitchen
Oven and hob are large but brief. The kettle is the same.
Standby
Everything left plugged in doing nothing. Small each, real when added up across a home.

The savings that are actually worth making

In order of what they return for the effort in a UAE home.

Raise the thermostat
Free, immediate, and the single biggest lever available. Each degree is fewer hours of compressor running.
Service the air conditioning
A clean filter and coil means less running time for the same cooling. It pays for itself over a summer.
Switch the water heater off in summer
For several months the tank water is already warm. Many homes here notice no difference at all.
Dry clothes outside
A dryer is heavy. In this climate the sun does the job for nothing in an hour.
Cool only the rooms you use
In a villa, four bedrooms cooled all day with one occupied is straightforward waste.
Chase standby loads
Worth doing, worth little. Do the five above first.

Checking a figure against your bill

The most useful thing you can do with this tool is work out what you think your usage should be, then compare it with the bill.

Run it for each big item: the air conditioning, the water heaters, the fridge, the washing machine. Add them up and add something for everything else.

If the total is close to your bill, you now know where your money goes and which change is worth making.

If your bill is much higher, something is running that you have not accounted for. A water heater with a failed thermostat that never switches off is a common one. So is an air conditioner running in an empty room.

If it is much lower, the wattages or hours you entered are probably optimistic. Appliance labels give maximum draw, and real hours are usually higher than people estimate.

Questions people ask

How do I calculate my electricity cost?: Multiply the watts by the hours used, divide by 1,000 to get kilowatt hours, then multiply by your rate. The tool does all of it once you put your own rate in.
Where do I find my electricity rate?: Divide the electricity charge on your bill by the kilowatt hours used on the same bill. That gives your effective rate, which is more useful than a figure from a tariff table.
What is a kilowatt hour?: One thousand watts running for one hour. A 1,000 watt heater on for an hour uses one unit, and so does a 100 watt lamp left on for ten hours.
What uses the most electricity in a UAE home?: Air conditioning, by a long way, for most of the year. Water heating is second in winter and close to nothing in summer.
Why is my bill higher in summer than the usage suggests?: Because charges are banded. When your monthly usage rises, the last units fall into a higher band, so your effective rate goes up as well as your consumption.
Does switching things off at the wall really help?: A little. Standby is real but small next to air conditioning and water heating. Do the big things first and treat this as tidying up.

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