[product#119]
Have you ever wondered how much it costs you to leave your TV on stand-by? How much it costs to play your Xbox? or, How much power your mobile phone charger is using even when the mobile isn’t plugged in?
Well, the Plug-In Mains Power & Energy Monitor or the ‘Kill-A-Watt’ as its known in the States isn’t anything new but it could be what you need to start that low carb’ diet you promised yourself this new year.
I know it’s not what you had in mind, so, what’s so good about it?
Well simply because it will help you monitor the amount of power used by your household gadgets and help you lose those ‘pounds’ on the electricity bill which just seems to keep growing.
It’s really easy to use; all you have to do is plug it into the mains with your device plugged into it. Then simply wait however long you want, I myself chose to monitor my Dell W2600 LCD TV for 2 hours. It can monitor the KWh for 9999 hours (9999/24=416 days) if you really wanted, so you can leave it plugged-in for a year.
It will also display the Volts, Amps, Watt, VA, Hz, PF, KWH and Time. Now I’m not going to pretend I know what these are and to be honest I don’t care, all I care about is the KWh and Time metrics. Using these two it should be very easy to work out the cost of running any household device, read on to see an example.
Note:The Kill-A-Watt displays the KWh reading as a cumulative figure, so its how much energy you’ve used since you plugged it in, the time is also a cumulative reading.
On my last bill I was charged 15.350p peak-time and 11.140p off-peak (if you can’t find this on your bill then leave me a comment). I will use the Peak-Time of 15.350p through-out my calculations. So, for those who want to conserve some brain power then this is a simple sum which will allow you to work out how much it costs to run the device for a specific amount of time.
My LCD TV’s usage on the Kill-A-Watt reads 0.28 KWh over 2 hours. So how much did it cost to run?
It’s simple:
0.28 X 15.350p= 4.298p that’s £0.04 (2 d.p)
If you want to go all the way and test your maths then why not work out how much each device in your house costs to run per hour. All you have to do is divide the KWh reading by the Time reading, so my TV’s usage is 0.28 KWh in 2 hours.
0.28KWh / 2 hours = 0.14 KW every hour
Now, if you multiply this by your peak-rate (15.350p) to calculate the hourly cost:
0.14 KW * 15.350p = 2.149p that’s 0.02 (2 d.p)
So my TV is costing me 2p an hour to watch, I know you think that’s not much but honestly add this up, if you use it 7 hours a day for 365 days it will cost you about £50. Now think about all your other gadgets and it adds up also try monitoring things like your fridge and you’ll be shocked at how much energy they use.
I also found this great tool which allows you to calculate energy running cost using the individual reading given by the Kill-A-Watt
http://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp*
Give it ago and it would be interesting to see your results, especially how much a gadget costs to run on stand by compared to the normal running cost.
Any questions then please post a comment.
You can buy it here:
Maplin Electronics Ltd
Links:
ukpower.co.uk
For more information on how to save money on your energy bill have a look at uswitch.com