I'm not sure if you were able to see my 2 part series on Energy Hogs or not, but I thought I would give you some more information here.  It was actually pretty enlightening to me...what actually uses the most energy in our homes.  This information will allow us to save money in the long run by helping us use energy more wisely.  In the future, I believe that all homes will have "smart meters" in them that will allow us to track our energy usage, and also allow the power company to charge you more during peak times and less during down times.  That way if you can wait until evening to run the dishwasher or do your clothes you would actually save money.  I have a link to the AEP sites and their "test" smart meter program coming up.

While the basic things didn't surprise me...the BIG energy hogs are the furnace, air conditioner and water heater, some of the other things did.  The big flat screen TVs, especially the plasma, used a LOT more energy than the old bulky tube TVs.  That is one way that we have increased our electrical usage.  New appliances can save you a lot of money...in some of the cases I found that a refrigerator now uses about 1 quarter of the energy of one from 1985.  So in some areas, manufacturers have made big improvements. 

All of these new electronic gadgets use energy, but not as much as I thought.  Laptop computers use a lot less energy than the desktop ones do.  And what about all of our cell phones and I-pods that need to be charged every few days?  Well, I discovered that they use very little energy.  My I-pod nano didn't even register on the meter that I was using to test, so I don't know how much it cost to charge it up.  But, my cell phone did register...and even after overestimating how often I might have to charge it, it only costs me 17 cents for an entire year of charges.  Yes, I said "cents".  So that means the nano comes in much less than that.  And, I discovered something else.  If I left my charger in all year long, it would only add about 15 more cents to my bill for the year.  And I understand that manufacturers are now making new chargers that do not syphon any energy when not plugged into the phone.  That's good news because there are hundreds of millions of phones around the world...I'm guessing.

Here are the appliances that we tested and the estimated cost for an entire year on the far right...