Cost to run a box fan in Alabama (August 2026 rates)
At 16.33¢ per kilowatt-hour — Alabama's average residential price in August 2026 — running a box fan costs $18.37 a year. That is 10% less than the national average of $20.43.
- Per hour
- 1.2¢
- Per day of use
- 12.2¢
- Per month
- $1.53
- Per year
- $18.37
Assumption: 75 W, 10 hours a day, 150 days a year — 112 kWh a year. 20-inch box fan on high. Low speed roughly halves the draw. Use the calculator to swap in the numbers from your own model.
How Alabama compares
Alabama pays 16.33¢/kWh, the 26th most expensive residential electricity of the 51 U.S. jurisdictions EIA reports. For this appliance that works out to $2.06 less a year than the typical U.S. household pays for the same use. Running the same box fan costs $14.31 a year in Nevada and $53.08 in Hawaii, so where you live changes this bill by $38.77 a year.
| State | Rate | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Missouri | 16.02¢ | $1.50 | $18.02 |
| West Virginia | 16.31¢ | $1.53 | $18.35 |
| Alabama | 16.33¢ | $1.53 | $18.37 |
| New Mexico | 16.51¢ | $1.55 | $18.57 |
| Indiana | 17.02¢ | $1.60 | $19.15 |
States ranked by average residential price, cheapest first. See all 51 states for a box fan.
What else costs about the same in Alabama
Cutting the number down
- Pointing one out of an upstairs window at night pulls cool air through the whole house for a fraction of what cooling it costs.
- Box fans are cheap to run but not free: continuous summer use adds up to real kilowatt-hours.
Questions
- How much does a box fan cost per month in Alabama?
- About $1.53 a month, assuming 75 W, 10 hours a day, 150 days a year at 16.33¢/kWh.
- How many kilowatt-hours does a box fan use?
- Roughly 112 kWh a year under these assumptions, or 0.07 kWh for every hour it runs.
- Is that expensive compared with other states?
- Alabama has the 26th most expensive average residential rate in the country, so this appliance costs less here than the U.S. average of $20.43 a year.