Kill A Watt™ - Solar Home Accessories

Recently, our friends at Akeena Solar (the California based Solar installer) gave us a Kill A Watt™ tool which is a handy complement to a solar photovoltaic system.  With electricity bills generally rising, it is a great idea to find out exactly how much energy individual appliances in your house are using.  Simply connect these appliances to the Kill A Watt™, and it will assess how efficient they really are.  The display will count consumption by the Kilowatt-hour over a day, week, month or year.  If you are technically minded, you can also check the quality of your power by monitoring voltage, line frequency, and power factor.

So what’s the point of all this?  Now may be a great time to check and potentially throw out the old refrigerator or air conditioner and get new, energy saving devices.  They may cost a little extra cash in the short term, but save money in the long term.  Also, test some of the other appliances in your house – you may be surprised how much energy the flat screen TV and stereo consume while you are out at work all day.  For more information go to the Kill A Watt™ Site.