Pretty handy device.

There's a black stripe on the meter, and it uses that to measure the rotation speed, and thus the electricity usage.

Just need to clamp that ontop of the meter.

It then beams that info over to a portable wireless display.

Makes things a lot easier to know what uses what.

The official website

(I was just seeing a repost of the "vampire" meme this morning ... that the world will be saved if we unplugged the small electrical devices not in use.  I gotta tell you, my Kill-A-Watt totaled up 0 kwh for my cell phone charger all week.  Compare that to your fridge.  Seriously, I mean your fridge.)

So anyone who hasn't done everything possible to cut consumption in those areas is missing much more fertile conservation opportunities.

But, on the other hand, one cannot generalize too much from one's own experience; just because you have only one vampire does not mean that others are like you.

I have been staggered by the size and number of small loads chugging away in several middle class homes I have inspected:  

 * cordless tools being left on charge at all times,

 stereos and televisions with power-ready lights going at all times,

 *VCRs (complete with flashing "12:00" digital displays),

 *multiple cell-phone chargers,

 *office machines (computers, printers, all-in-ones), and Palm Pilot charger/syncros

 *treadmills that never turned off

 *microwave ovens with clocks sitting right over the ovens with clocks, parked near the wall clock

  7w nightlights used to illuminate places where no one much enters at all

  * digital answering machines

Individually, these loads are small; collectively they are not; when you multiply by 10^8 households, they are very large indeed.

The 5% Project

What are your fridge numbers?

And on a what are your numbers point, nothing made in the last 10 years or so that I've tested, with my kill-a-watt pulled 7w "off".

As far as the question goes, in much of America it's even worse---there are two fridges in each house: one (an inefficient side-by-side monster) in the kitchen and a second (a REALLY inefficient top-freezer model that was bought sometime between 1960-1980) in the garage, cooling beer and making excess heat.  THAT's the fridge that worries me most -- the second one.

I certainly would be in favor of some sort of electric pricing scheme that would cause heavy consumers to pay lots more and lead to people getting better fridges and getting rid of the "beer fridge."

Meanwhile, though, at least refrigerators have a purpose for each kWh used and provide something of great value (food preservation/disease prevention).  What is the value of all those phantom loads?

The 5% Project

Generally, commodity-suppliers charge less per-unit for larger volumes, since they benefit from economies of scale. Does society have a shared-interest in reducing electricity-consumption?

Not only that, we also have the remote-control going in, so that the power company can reduce air-conditioning load remotely.  It's offered as an incentive (lower rates as you give them more control).

My newish (big, cheap, white, energy star) Sears uses something like half what my old hand-me-down (but wouldn't die) fridge.  I'll have to dig up the numbers, but the actual payback in electricity costs wasn't that long.

(Oh, SCE also paid a bounty for my old fridge, and a rebate on my new one ... aggressive policies out here in CA)