Have you ever wondered how much does it cost to use any electrical appliance? Or how much impact buying a new appliance will have on your electricity bill?
Fortunately, there are online tools that can calculate your electricity costs and answer all your related questions. Here, we look at eight handy tools for estimating electricity costs.
1. Omni Calculator
Omni Calculator has hundreds of free calculators on its website, including an electricity cost calculator.
To get an estimate of your electricity costs, you have to enter three values: price, usage time, and power consumption. Omni Calculator then gives you an estimate of your daily electricity costs and consumption.
You can also get weekly, monthly, or yearly cost estimates from the drop-down menu. This simple calculator makes it super-easy to get an idea of how much electricity a particular appliance is using.
You can find the wattage on the appliance’s instruction manual, find the electricity tariff from your bill, and enter an estimated usage time. If you want to estimate the cost of one-time usage only (say for a particular event), Omni Calculator has a separate single usage calculator for it.
2. RapidTables
RapidTables is a handy website with tons of tools and quick reference information. Its Electricity Bill Calculator gives you an estimated cost of running any particular electrical appliance. To find your electricity costs, you’ll need to enter your country, appliance, usage hours per day, and price per kWh.
The best thing about RapidTables’ calculator is that it automatically suggests the wattage of any appliance. But if your appliance’s power consumption differs from the average one, you can manually enter the wattage of your device.
Once you’ve entered all the values, Rapid Tables shows you the daily, monthly, and yearly electricity costs.
3. Calculator.net
Another website that can help you calculate your electricity bill is Calculator.net. To estimate your electricity cost, select the appliance whose running costs you want to find. Calculator.net then shows you the average power consumption of your selected appliance.
Next, enter the usage time either in hours, days, weeks, or months. As the appliance usage varies greatly in each household, it recommends you enter your actual usage time. Lastly, enter the electricity cost per kilowatt in dollars.
The standout feature of Calculator.net’s Electricity Calculator is that it accounts for the capacity at which the appliance is used. Appliances like air conditioners or electrical ovens are not usually used at full capacity, so may consume less power than the specified wattage.
Unless you specify otherwise, Calculator.net uses an estimated running capacity, depending on the chosen appliance. Thanks to this feature, you can get a more precise estimation of your electricity consumption and costs.
4. handymath.com
As the name suggests, handymath.com is a handy website for solving mathematical problems. However, it does have a useful electricity cost calculator. What sets it apart from others on the list is the fact that you can add multiple appliances together and get a combined estimation of all the devices.
To get the electricity cost estimation, enter your electricity tariff in cents. Then add your appliance, its wattage, and the usage time. If you want to add more appliances, you can do so by using the Add Rows button. Once you’ve added all the appliances, click on Calculate.
handymath.com shows the total energy consumption and cost along with the appliance-wise breakdown. This not only helps you understand your total electricity costs, but also tells you how much each appliance is contributing to your expenses.
Usually, a few household items are responsible for using most of your electricity. So, this tool can help you spot those energy-eating devices.
Its main shortcoming is that it doesn’t automatically estimate daily, monthly, or yearly costs. So, you’ve to make sure that you’re adding the daily usage time if you want a daily cost estimation or monthly usage if you want a monthly bill.
5. Reduction Revolution
Reduction Revolution is an Australian energy company that promotes sustainable and cost-effective living. To make people realize the impact of their electricity usage, they have an electricity cost estimator on their website.
The calculator itself is pretty simple and easy to use. Begin with entering the power consumption of your appliance. Then, add your electricity tariff in cents/kWh. Next, specify your average usage time using the three scales. The calculator then instantly shows the yearly consumption and costs.
6. EnergyUseCalculator.com
EnergyUseCalculator.com does exactly what it says on the tin. To find your costs, you’ve to first choose an electrical appliance from the list of different appliances.
After you select your appliance, the calculator shows you the estimated values of power consumption, usage time, and tariff. However, you can choose to change this information depending on your usage.
For most devices, it gives a simple explanation telling how much energy is used for a particular task. This way you can enter the usage time more precisely and get better estimations. Clicking on the Calculate button gives you the hourly, daily, monthly, and yearly costs.
7. Energy.gov
Energy.gov is the official website of the U.S. Government Energy Department. Among the other tools and resources, it has an appliance energy calculator. To get an estimated cost, select any appliance from the drop-down menu. The calculator will itself suggest the wattage, but you can always adjust it.
Then, choose your state so that the calculator will use the electricity tariff of your state. Otherwise, it will calculate the bill based on the average U.S. tariff. Lastly, enter the hours per day and days per year to find the estimate of how much electricity and money you are spending on a particular appliance.
8. Your Electric Company
The most accurate way of finding your electricity costs is to visit your electric company's website. Most utilities have such tools on their websites.
The upside of using your utility’s calculator is that they’ll use the local data for electricity tariff and power consumption. This will give you the true picture of your energy expenses. If your utility doesn’t have a cost estimator, you can visit another utility’s website that serves the same or nearby area.
Saving Energy, Money, and the Planet
All these websites have great tools that can estimate your electricity costs. However, they can only find the price of electricity in dollars. The actual cost of using any appliance also includes the effect it has on the environment.
Luckily, there are websites that can help you figure out the environmental impact of using these devices. So whether you want to save a hundred dollars each month, protect the planet, or both, it’s high time you started saving energy and shifted to energy-efficient alternatives.
