Low Impact

Time to buy a new fridge? A growing family means you need a bigger washing machine?

How about for this purchase you factor in its energy efficiency?

The difference in electricity consumption between 2 seemingly similar appliances can be surprising. And since that electricity consumption adds up to pollution, CO2 emissions, and extra dollars on your electricity bill, it makes a lot of sense to factor that into your decision of which machine to buy.

In Australia, appliances come labelled with energy ratings (pictured). The labels typically give a star rating so you can see how efficient an appliance is for its class, as well as how much electricity you can expect the appliance to use in a year under “typical use”. The star rating is a good guide, but its well worth checking out the actual yearly consumption figure as well - two products may both have a good star rating but by virtue of its size, for instance, one appliance may still use substantially less electricity than its competitor.

You can also use the yearly figure to get a rough idea of how much the appliance will cost you financially to run. Depending on the cost of your electricity, dividing the figure by 10 will give you a rough idea of how many dollars you’re up for.

We’re lucky enough in Australia to have access to a website called www.energyrating.gov.au. Using this site you can look up a particular model of a particular sort of appliance, or do a comparison of similar sorts of appliances.

While exploring the site, I was able to choose “Compare fridges”, select the rough size of the fridge, and be presented with a list of relevant models. From that list you could see that a Miele 258 litre fridge will use around 240 kwH/year, while a Nightingale 258 litre fridge will use 327 kwH/year. Thats around 35% more electricity for a fridge with identical capacity!

Of course, its more than just looking at the sticker. In some cases you can get a 100% energy saving…by not buying the appliance at all! After all, do you really need that 6 Kilowatt air conditioner, or will that 50 watt fan do just as well?!

Categories: efficiency, environment, green