HOUSTON, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The average U.S. household spent 1,856 U.S. dollars on home energy bills in 2015 and air conditioning accounted for 12 percent of total household energy costs, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported on Monday.

EIA quoted its latest Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) as reporting that Air-conditioning equipment is used in 87 percent of homes in the United States and home air-conditioning costs averaged 265 dollars in 2015, or 12 percent of total home energy expenditures.

Air-conditioning costs ranged from an average of 525 dollars in the hot-humid region in the Southeast to about 60 dollars in the temperate marine region along the West Coast.

About 60 percent of U.S. households only used central air-conditioning systems in 2015, while 23 percent only used individual air-conditioning units and just slightly less than 5 percent of households used both equipment types.

Households that used central systems spent about twice as much for air conditioning in 2015 as households with individual units, with average costs of 299 dollars compared with 156 dollars. However, because the homes using central systems were often larger, the cost per square foot of using an individual air-conditioning unit was about twice as much as using a central system, at 0.31 dollar per square foot compared with 0.15 dollar per square foot.