Home Appliance Energy Rating System – How Does it Work?

Home appliances are excellent labour-saving devices that help us with everything from cooking to laundry, but they’re also hogs on energy usage in the average household in Australia. Just how much energy do home appliances use? Approximately one-third of all energy costs can be attributed to home appliance usage. As you might imagine, this can really add up over time.

This is why the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy, and Resources initiated the Equipment Energy Efficiency (E3) programme. The goal of E3 is to appropriately label home appliances with a star rating denoting their energy usage so that customers can make informed choices when it comes to energy efficiency on various makes and models of home appliances.

The Energy Rating Label

If you have a look on the rear or sides of most household appliances, you should be able to find its Energy Rating Label in black, red, and yellow. This label is focussed on energy efficiency, as represented by the number of stars found on the label, ranging from 1 to 6 (in some cases, up to 10).

The more the merrier. More stars mean that, compared to appliances of a similar size (and the same type of appliance), the appliance is more/less efficient than others on the market.

Below the star rating is a big black box titled ‘ENERGY RATING’, under which the energy consumption must be clearly displayed. In this case, lower is better. Remember, lower energy consumption correlates to smaller energy bills over time.

How Much Does it Cost to Run My Appliances?

Luckily, energy costs in Australia make it fairly easy to estimate the approximate running costs of various appliances around the home. We need to rely on a few assumptions, however:

The appliance is in good running order (i.e. it doesn’t require repairs or maintenance at the moment);
Your usage is par for the course (more usage will skew your estimate upwards while occasional use will skew it downwards);
Energy costs are assumed to be, on average, about 25c per kWh (Victoria is currently at about 22c/kWh, so let’s round up to 25c).

The maths are fairly straightforward. Make a list of all Energy Rating Label appliances in your home and note their energy consumption numbers. Create a column next to the usage and divide each number by four. The quotient will be the approximate yearly cost (in $) of running each appliance. Tally up the numbers for the total energy draw from your appliances.

Refer to the example below to get started:

Appliance 1: 450 kWh / 4 = $112.50 per year
Appliance 2: 65 kWh / 4 = $16.25 per year
Appliance 3: 225 kWh / 4 = $56.25 per year

Total cost for the household = 112.50 + 16.25 + 56.25 = $185/year

Get Accurate Estimates

If you’re looking for an easy solution online, look no further than Australia’s Energy Rating Calculator. Simply choose your appliance, enter the brand/make, estimate your usage, input your purchase price, and you’ll get a detailed estimate of the running costs and energy consumption for that exact model.

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