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I estimate my electric hot water usage costs $30. per month. My thermostat tracks my central units hours and I have tested all plug in 110v appliances. I have two months per year with no central unit use and they average less than $70. The plug in 110 stuff costs about $30 per month. That leaves about 40 bucks. The only things I can't test are the cooktop, clothes drier, oven and HWH. I believe the HWH uses the majority of that so I estimate it to be in the $30. per month range. Payback would be a long time in coming on a high efficiency unit. On a side note I have become pretty good at calculating my electric bill based on central unit runtimes.
Tangent follows....I have considered installing a solar HWH. The payback would be terrible, but having warm/hot water during a power outage would be great. My house is completely electric and I worry about long term outages. Before I moved here there was an ice storm that left the area without power for 2 weeks. I purchased a 2000W Yamaha generator for emergency backup. I could have gone larger but if I lose power then many of the local gas stations will too. My genny uses 1 gallon every 12 hrs...that's a requirement I can sustain for several weeks with fuel I have on hand. A larger generator can easily use 10 gallons every 12hrs. For heat I purchased a Kerosene heater and a sealed drum of Kerosene (21 days). I have a camp stove/propane grill/propane buddy heater/propane burner/lanterns and 100 hour emergency candles to round out the cold weather survival plan. Other than heating water on a burner and dumping it into a tub, I have no good way of heating water for bathing.
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