Low energy appliances for your house

Embodied Energy in Things

All manufactured items that we use are generally made with some form of energy. Normally that energy comes from fossil fuels.

We call this hidden energy Embodied Energy. Often the amount of embodied energy is greater than the amount of energy an item will use during its service life.

Less Energy Usage

It is difficult to comprehend how much we need to reduce our electrical energy consumption especially as we are surrounded by so many high energy devices that we have come to think as essential (e.g. television, games machines, refrigerator, washing machine).

The average house in Victoria uses between 12 and 15 kWatt.hours of electricity per day.

If the average house has 2.4 occupants, this translates to 5-6.25 kWatt.hours per person per day.

If this is reduced by 1/15th (a sustainable level of consumption) then the energy consumption per day drops to 0.33-0.42 kWatt.hour per person per day (330-420 Watt.hours)

Low Energy Appliances

A list of low electrical energy appliances is presented for comparison:

• mobile phone - 5 Watts.hours (5 Watts for 1 hour charge)
• laptop -