Residential Customer Equivalent (RCE) is a unit of measures used by the
energy industry
The energy industry refers to all of the industries involved in the production and sale of energy, including fuel extraction, manufacturing, oil refinery, refining and distribution. Modern society consumes large amounts of fuel, and the energy in ...
to denote the typical annual commodity consumption by a single-family residential customer.
Also known as "RCE" for short, a single RCE represents 1,000
therms of
natural gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
or 10,000
kWh of
electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...
.
RCE is often used to help normalize the size of energy companies. Energy companies serve a number of customers that is typically different from the RCE value consumed by those customers. For example, an
LDC or
ESCO may serve 50,000 customers but many of those can be commercial or industrial customers, so that same company can be said to serve 400,000 RCE.
References
Energy economics
Equivalent units
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