Everything Wind Power & Wind Mills

By: Olivia Wilson
With electricity prices on the rise, keeping your utility bills low is increasingly difficult. One way you can achieve smaller gas and electric bills at the end of each month is to make sure that your appliances are as efficient as possible. With the advent of a number of EU directives on energy efficiency, most domestic appliances – ranging from fridges to toasters to televisions – now come with a standard EU energy label.

The label has a universal letter and colour code which marks how efficient an appliance is, and ultimately how much you could save on electricity prices by using a more energy efficient appliance. The scale ranges from A to G with a corresponding colour code from green to red. Green appliances with an A rating in a category are extremely energy efficient. A yellow-coded D-rated appliance is moderately efficient, whereas an appliance with a red colour coding and G letter assigned to it is inefficient.

It’s important to note that whilst the colour and letter scales are universal for all appliances, each grade will represent a different energy efficiency depending on the given appliance. An A-grade fridge will not necessarily be as fuel efficient as an A-grade dishwasher, for example. Different appliances are also indexed on different scales. Washing machines, for example, are indexed on kilowatt hours (kWh) per kilo of washing, whereas dishwashers are indexed on kWh per 12 place settings.

With such differing measures of energy efficiency, the clear and simple scheme of colours and letter ranges allows all consumers to quickly and easily to discern energy efficient models from inefficient models. Most labelling also includes the energy consumption of an appliance per cycle or per annum so that you can work out the cost of running an appliance given the current electricity prices.

Obviously with the threat of fuel scarcity and large hikes in  electricity prices, developing appliances which can really utilise a limited amount of electricity makes sense. Increasing the fuel efficiency of some of our everyday appliances can start making inroads to cut back on global energy consumption, and with it, global carbon dioxide production. To this end, certain appliances have taken considerable steps to maximise their energy efficiency, which has led to the development of special A+ and A++ grades on the European energy efficiency scale for certain appliances.