Power Cost Meters - How & Why

Over the past few years experts have warned that we are using a lot more energy than we should be. This overuse of energy is causing serious problems for the environment and it is thought that if it continues, we could potentially wipe out part of our planet.
Of course there are sceptics who say that such experts are overreacting and that there are no real threats to the environment. Whatever your views on the subject, it is not hard to see that some damage has been done as time has gone on. For that reason it is vital that we start to make changes to lower our power consumption.

The Problems with Appliance and Electrical Standby
One way in which people use up more electricity than they have to, is by leaving their switches on standby. It might make sense to put your television onto standby if you are just going out quickly to the shops, but you may not realise just how much electricity the standby setting can use.
A DVD player for example can use up to 85% energy when it is placed on standby. That is a lot of power consumption for something that is not even being used! The same applies to equipment such as electric toothbrushes and electric shavers. If they have been fully charged then you should unplug them or else they will continue to use energy even though they do not need it.
Keeping one appliance on standby may not cause too much damage, but the trouble comes when you have several devices on standby mode. This is because standby mode usually takes up roughly 15 watts of energy. So if you have a number of different appliances on standby then you could be using the equivalent of 60 watts.
These days most homes are placed onto standby. Stereos, DVD players, laptops and PCs, game consoles and electric toothbrushes are all there ready and waiting to be used. When you realize just how much energy each one is using, you will soon start to turn each appliance off until you really do need to use it.
Due to people leaving their stereos on standby all of the time, it costs £290 million for just one year. They produce up to 1.6 tonnes of CO2 which is an awful lot to say they are not being used! Overall the total amount of CO2 being released into the environment from the UK alone is just over 3 million tonnes. That is just the UK. America generates a lot more than that and so as you can see, it really is a big problem that needs addressing.
Overall you may not realize just how much energy you are wasting by keeping your appliances on standby. So now that you do know why not take a quick look around and switch off any devices that you are not using. Not only will it reduce your homes power consumption, but it will also save you money too!

In any home you will find an electric power cost meter. Designed to measure how much energy your home is using, most electric power meters are used by electricity companies so that they know how much to bill you. However you can also purchase different electric power cost meters if you are interested in saving energy.

Here you will find out everything that you need to know about the different types of electricity meters. Once you have a better understanding of how they work, you can then use them to measure how much energy you are using.

The Standard Power Cost Meter

All homes come with a standard electric power meter, which as mentioned earlier, is used by electricity companies to estimate your monthly bills. These meters are usually kilowatt hour meters and they tell the company how much electricity per hour your home is using.

There are two main types of electricity meters used these days and they include:
· Electromechanical Meters
· Electronic Meters

Both of the above measure the amount of electricity you use per hour. Generally the electromechanical meter is the one that most homes have. You can see how much electricity you are using by a round aluminum disc that spins around. The faster it spins the more electricity you are using. This type of reader has to be read every now and again by the electric company. Electronic meters on the other hand are newer meters and they are read automatically.

So if you want to know how much electricity you are using via your standard electric power meter then you mainly have to look at how fast the disc is spinning. However, it will not help you to get the best idea of how you can save energy. For that you will need an appliance energy meter.

Appliance Power Cost Meters

Many homeowners are purchasing appliance energy meters these days in order to cut down the amount of energy that they use. This is because you can plug any appliance into the meter and it will tell you exactly how much energy that appliance is creating. It tells you while the appliance is both on standby and completely off.

Another handy electric power meter that you can invest in is an in-home energy use display device. That connects to your standard meter and you can see exactly how much electricity each different appliance is using. It does all of the hard work for you and if you plug it into a computer it will even show you graphs of your homes energy use.

Overall by understanding your homes electric power meters you can then get a better idea of how to limit your homes energy use. Knowledge equals power and while they may be fairly complicated to understand, electric power cost meters can help you to lower your homes energy use.