Energy Efficiency is the combination of using appliances designed to use electricity wisely, using less by identifying where you use electricity when you didn’t even realize it, and improving the performance of your home or office to reduce heating and cooling needs. While some energy efficient products and practices may cost a bit more at the outset, they are guaranteed to save you money in the long-run, and that’s a win-win for our environment and your bank account. With the prices of oil and electricity going up all the time, can you really afford not to be energy efficient?

Download a great Resource Sheet to bring to your work, home or school.

The Energy Star Program

Energy Star is a program which creates standards for a wide range of electronics and appliances to make sure that they meet increasing standards for energy efficiency. The standards cover everything from battery chargers to refrigerators to televisions to fax machines to commercial equipment and heating and cooling systems. Look for the Energy Star logo on any electronics that you get, especially any major purchase. Many electronics can cost significantly more in energy costs than their purchase price. Energy Star helps you save lots of money.

What to Target in your Home

It is important to remember that when you buy a new appliance, your costs are not limited to the purchase price. From the moment you get it home and plug it in, that appliance is making your electric meter spin and racking up the $$$ while it does so. In fact, the operating costs over the lifetime of a product can end up being several times the original purchase price! So who cares if you saved $50 on an air conditioner when it will cost you an extra $200 to run it for a couple of summers? Every time you make an appliance purchase, consider the electricity usage and factor that into your total cost.

If you are looking to lower your electric bill, the first appliances that you should go after are the things that are on the most, and the things that use the most electricity. Is your hall or kitchen light always on? Make sure it is an energy saving compact fluorescent bulb. In fact, a good recommendation is to change all of your lights to CFL bulbs. Are you a big TV watcher? LCD televisions use less electricity than tube TVs or plasma TVs. Think about your lifestyle, and things that you can target.

High draw items like air-conditioners and refrigerators are a MUST for Energy Star certification. The electricity used by an air-conditioner will cost about 4X what the air-conditioner unit costs. Remember to look for the Energy Star!

Building Performance Improvement

Inefficient building performance not only increases our reliance on fossil fuel use, it adds to building and home management costs, undermines the health and well being of the surrounding community, and suppresses the development of local economies. According to recent data, buildings account for 79% of greenhouse gas emissions in New York City, but the truth is that a significant portion of those emissions could be wiped out. Improvements in the design and construction of new buildings and the assessment and retrofit of existing buildings to maximize performance can reduce buildings.

Design and construction issues are covered in our Green Building section, but for existing buildings, there is help at hand. Community Environmental Center (CEC) is the largest provider of weatherization services in New York State and they have over 13 years of experience at the forefront of building energy performance. From boilers to windows to lightbulbs, CEC can make the necessary recommendations that will reduce your operating costs while keeping your family or employees healthy and comfortable. For more information, check out their website, or call them at (718) 784-1444.

The Surge Protector Trick

A little known fact about many appliances is that they are using electricity even when they are “off”. Anything that uses a remote is like this, along with some other things. Commonly called “vampires“, they use 5% of all domestic energy and cost consumers over $3billion. It can be hard to believe, but a stereo that draws 40 watts when on can easily use 25 watts when “off”.

To save the big bucks a trick commonly used is to plug your appliances into a surge protector and turn it off when they are not in use. Surge protectors break the circuit and don’t let the electronics use their “vampire” electricity draws. Also, I bet your TV, stereo, DVD, VCR, and others are already very close to each other. It will be simple to use the surge protector trick in this case.

Another even more convenient method is the new Smart Surge Protector. It automatically switches off some of its outlets. I’ll let them explain because it is pretty cool:

The Smart Strip Power Strip features advanced circuitry that not only offers excellent power surge protection and line noise filtering, but is actually able to ’sense’ the flow of electrical current through the strip’s control outlet. Because of this unique ability, the Smart Strip can turn off selected equipment when its not in use — creating benefit that no other power strip on the market today can offer.

This is a great buy for those people whose surge protector would be behind a couch or something, or for those a bit too lazy to bend over and flick the on/off switch on the surge protector.

Kill-a-watt monitor

Loved by gadget freaks and environmentalists alike, a new-ish item on the market called Kill-A-Watt helps you identify vampire appliances and those drawing a heavy load. A new Kill-A-Watt EZ was released in July 2007. It is a good tool for helping to make real the cost of electricity. It has fancy readouts like voltage, amps and approximate cost of electricity.

In the linked review by the Gadgeteer, the gadget tester found that one of her floor lamps, on 24/7 would cost over $200/year with incandescents and only $40/year with CFLs. She was quite impressed!