The Riddle of Appliance Energy Consumption

When we look at the energy consumption of appliances and other devices, one thing that strikes me is that you cannot determine the amount of energy an appliance is likely to use, nor the ability to save energy by using the appliance better by looking at the price of the device. Whilst you are reading this article you might also want to think about what the appliance to the right might be.

Compare a fan heater with a reverse cycle air conditioner. The Air Conditioner will probably cost about 50 times more than the heater, but will only consume 20% more power during peak operations. When it does consume power, the heat output will about about 2.5-3 times that of the fan heater. But given the reduction in heat output, there is less ability to make savings in energy with the fan heater.

Depending on the Tariff, it might be possible to use more energy than the device costs in 10 hours with a fan heater. With the Air Conditioner, this will take a lot longer.

Unfortunately, there is no simple way to predict the savings made by changing how an appliance operates. There are too many factors to consider. What I can say is that with greater energy consumption comes greater operational costs, and therefor normally greater chance to make savings.

So, what is the device to the right of the screen? Well, it is an electrical hair curler from a museum in Silverton, in the far west of NSW, near Broken Hill, here in Australia. This is a great example of one of those appliances that you can look at and just wonder not only what it does, but how much energy it uses.