Estimate Your Appliances’ Energy Use
Inefficient appliances can have an impact on a home’s monthly power bill. Replacing a refrigerator made before 1993 with a new, Energy Star-rated model could knock between $65-$100 off your electricity bill each year. To sweeten the deal, rebates funded by the federal stimulus bill provide incentives for if you trade out old appliances with new, energy-efficient alternatives.
This leaves consumers with a question when evaluating older appliances: how much energy use is too much? To estimate the energy use of an appliance, use this formula:
Wattage × Hours used per day × Days used per year ÷ 1,000 = Kilowatt-hour (kWh) used annually
For example:
Standard, large-screen television (214 Watts)
214 Watts × 4 hours per day x 365 days per year ÷ 1000 = 312 kWh
Then calculate the annual cost to use an appliance by multiplying the kWh per year by .0904 per kWh used.
312 kWh × .0904 = $28.21 per year
You can usually find the wattage of most appliances stamped on the bottom or back of the appliance, or on its nameplate. The wattage listed is the maximum power drawn by the appliance. Since some appliances have a range of settings (i.e. hairdryers), the actual amount of power consumed depends on the setting used at any one time.
Here are examples of the range of wattages for common household appliances:
• Clothes washer: 350–500 Watts
• Clothes dryer: 1800–5000 Watts
• Dishwasher: 1200–2400 Watts (heat drying feature increases energy use)
• Hair dryer: 1200–1875 Watts
• Microwave oven: 750–1100 Watts
• Refrigerator (frost-free, 16 cubic feet): 725 Watts
Once you calculate how much money you spend to run aging home appliances, compare this to what it would cost to use more efficient models. For example, not only have clothes washers become 64% more energy efficient since 2000—the tub size increased by 9%. With a new model you can wash more clothes for less money every month!
Don’t want the hassle of adding up the potential savings? Touchstone Energy® Cooperatives’ website, which can be accessed directly through our website at www.accessenergycoop.com, demonstrates how small changes lead to big energy savings. Each time you make a change, you’re shown how much money you could save on your annual electric bill!
Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; U.S. Energy Information Administration, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, Natural Resources Defense Council, U.S. Energy Information Administration