Energy Advice

Welcome to our energy advice column. Here we summarize publicly available information on the many ways you can save money on your energy bills as well as general topics on renewable energy. We try to keep our advice short and to the point.

THE "KILL A WATT"

In another Energy Advice column, we talked about phantom loads and how much power they suck up simply because they make our life easier.

It takes a while to realize that when we're talking about these phantom loads, we're really talking about unnecessary consumption of energy, which means money. It’s interesting how a leaking water faucet gets our attention, while this invisible drain of electricity doesn't. Perhaps if we could see it, we'd react differently.

This is where the “Kill a Watt” device comes in. Plugged between the outlet and the appliance in question, it provides us with a visual display of the energy we're using when running an appliance or simply keeping it in a standby mode, as in the case of a VCR.  More interestingly, it remembers, from day to day, how much electricity the appliance consumes. It’s easy to operate:  one simply looks at the total amount of electricity consumed by the appliance in the LCD display of the “Kill a Watt.” (Kids enjoy placing it around the house to see how much electricity various appliances consume.)

Not only does the “Kill a Watt” provide a cumulative reading of energy consumption per KWH (kilowatts per hour), but it also displays voltage, amps, watts, and frequency.

One may wonder what to do with all the other buttons, but if one looks at the “Kill a Watt” as an educational device as well as a useful tool to read and "see" energy, the other buttons make sense.

It's totally safe. One end plugs into an outlet; the other becomes an outlet into which you plug the appliance.  Then you simply push the button of choice to get the display you wish to see.

The “Kill a Watt,” in short, enables you to start doing an energy audit of all home appliances. By telling you which appliances are energy hogs, it pay for itself by making a case for purchasing newer, more energy efficient appliances.

Is this device perfect? No, it’s not. Rather than providing all of the above mentioned buttons, it would be nice if it could provide a "cost" display—that is, the cost per kilowatt watt as charged by the electric utility times the kilowatt watt hours consumed. Many consumers probably relate more easily to dollars consumed rather than kilowatts. This feature would not add much to the current cost of approximately $30.00.
                       
How about getting behind the refrigerator? It's not easy to pull out the refrigerator to do a reading.  If you want to read the power consumed by the refrigerator, you have to be prepared to pull out the refrigerator and leave the “Kill a Watt” there for a while until it has collected sufficient data.  Be prepared to do some heavy moving if you're thinking of using the “Kill a Watt” to read the refrigerator.

It also lacks a 220V plug, which leaves the dryer, the washing machine and other 220V appliances out of the audit. This is unfortunate, given that many of these appliances fall into the "energy hog" category.

The “Kill a Watt,” however, is a good attempt at making electricity visible--like water dripping out of the faucet.

Is the price worth it? It will definitely pay for itself if used properly and with specific energy savings goals in mind.

Made by P3 International, it's sold on the Internet.