how much energy is required to move an electron from the ground state to an excited state?
For example an electron in the ground state has an energy of -13.6 eV. The second energy level is -3.4 eV. Thus it would take E2 − E1 = -3.4 eV − -13.6 eV = 10.2 eV to excite the electron from the ground state to the first excited state.