How does my house use energy?

The typical Canadian home uses over 29,000 equivalent kWh (ekWh) of energy in an average year. More than half of that energy goes to furnaces, heaters and air conditioners to control the climate of our homes. Roughly a quarter goes to appliances and lighting. From washing clothes to preparing meals, most of our daily household activities consume energy.

You can use the following formula to determine how much electricity your home appliances consume.

Wattage x hours used per day/1000 = Daily Kilowatt-hour (kWh) consumption (1 kilowatt (kW) = 1,000 Watts)

Multiply this by the number of days you use the appliance during the year for the annual consumption.

You can then calculate the annual cost to run an appliance by multiplying the kWh per year by your local utility’s rate per kWh consumed.

How much energy do typical appliances consume?

Did you know?

• People generally think that when an appliance is turned off, its really is off. However, this is not always the case.
• Many appliances have features that run around the clock. Heaters, cooling fans, transformers and chargers are all examples of appliances which include such a feature. These all add up to a considerable amount of energy, even though you’re not actually using the appliances. For example, the instant-on capability of most new televisions consumes electricity continuously, even after the set is turned off.
• The only way to eliminate this energy consumption is to un-plug the television. Often called leaking energy or phantom loads, these small amounts of energy add up to 700 kWh per year in a typical home.