If you feel your electricity bills are too high, or if you're looking to reduce your use of electricity for other reasons, then analyzing the electricity use of your major appliances is critical to understanding your total energy use.
If your refrigerator is 10 years old or older, you may want to consider replacing it with a newer, ENERGY STAR model that uses less electricity. Typically, older refrigerators use from 1,600 KWh to 2,000 KWh per year. (A Kilowatt -hour is 1,000 watts an hour. Your electric utility sells you electricity in Kilowatt-hours, typically somewhere between
An ENERGY STAR rated refrigerator consumes less than 500 KWh a year. That's less than per year in electricity on the low end of utility rates.
.10 andBut how do you know how much energy your refrigerator uses? You could measure it directly using a Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor. That'll set you back about and you'll have to let it run for at least two hours so the meter see your refrigerators cycling on and off a few times.
But there's an easier way. The Federal Government has already done the hard work for you and have made a database of over 41,000 refrigerators available for free. Simply open your refrigerator and look for the label that has the model number and serial number printed on it. It's usually at the top of the outer or inner wall. Then, open the database in Excel or other spreadsheet program and look up your make and model number. The record will tell you the likely energy consumption.
You can also tell how old your refrigerator is by going to the refrigerator decoder on appliance411.com and typing in your model and serial number. The date of manufacture is encoded into the serial number, but it's different for every manufacturer. Refrigerator manufacturers were required to make energy efficient upgrades to their lines in 1992 and again in 1999. So, if your refrigerator is 19 years old or older, you'll gain the most by buying a new refrigerator. By replacing an older refrigerator with an ENERGY STAR refrigerator and taking advantage of rebates from your utility, city, or state, you may be able to see a payback period less than one and a half years.
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Joel Greenberg is an Energy Auditor in Austin, TX for homes, multi-family communities, and small commercial buildings. His company, Greenberg Energy Services, helps clients make intelligent choices for saving energy while doing more with less.