 Does having a month of free electricity sound impossible? It isn’t. It can be done right now in a very simple way. It comes from the ten percent of electricity each month that is saved by unplugging energy vampires. Energy vampires are electronics in homes such as DVD players that are not in use most of the time. Any appliance that is plugged into an outlet draws a small amount of electricity even when it is not turned on. These little things add up and cost us lots in energy and resources unnecessarily.
Chargers for cell phones, computers, and idle game systems, are examples of appliances that draw energy even when they are not turned on. It can be a hassle to reach behind things unplugging and re-plugging in between each use. Fortunately, there are ways to make this easier. A lot of the bundled devices such as a TV with cable, or a computer and its peripherals, can be plugged into a single power strip. This way the power strip can be turned off or even unplugged. An even better solution, although not in the U.S. yet, is common with European electronics manufacturers. In Europe, electronics come with two “off” buttons. One turns off the appliance in a standby mode like we are used to. The other off button turns everything completely off.
If you want to do an in-home assessment of your energy use, you can do a manual survey of the house or better yet, use a device called the Kill A Watt, which measures the output of electricity. The Kill A Watt is a small device that is easy-to-use that measures exactly how much electricity is used by each appliance. All that is needed is to plug the appliance in the Kill A Watt and then plug it all into the socket in the wall. Not only is total power consumption measured, but also the Watts, Amps, Power Factor, Frequency and Voltage. These all are very good measurements to help determine the quality and flow of the power in a home. The screen of the Kill-A-Watt calculates consumption of electricity by the Kilowatt-hour, which is similar to that of the method used by the power company. It also allows an accurate figure of how much electricity you consume by the hour, day, week, month and the whole year. All that is needed is to divide the amount you have been billed, by the kilowatt-hours you used and that will give a rough price per kilowatt hour.
For information on the Kill A Watt, smart power strips, and other energy saving devices, the U.S. Department of Energy http://www.energy.gov/ is a great source of information.
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