Appliances for a Solar House

April 10, 2001

Selecting the right appliances for a solar house is not easy in a society driven by consumer motives that place price, features, appearance, standards and name brands well above energy utilization, water usage and longevity. When you enter an appliance store, you will likely be met by a salesperson that is unaccustomed to marketing their products based on criteria important for a solar powered home. This is further reflected in the inconsistent labeling of appliances with energy ratings. An energy efficiency guide book exists, but you're not likely to find this in your local appliance store. You'll need to dig a little deeper, look behind the shiny surfaces, and it's helpful to acquire the current EnerGuide Appliance Directory from the Office of Energy Efficiency (Natural Resources Canada). Call 1-800-387-2000 or visit http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca for a copy of this handy guide. And by the way, it's free!

While searching for the best appliances for our solar house in the country we visited two major appliance vendors in the suburban outskirts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The following table of vital statistics was gained, not easily, by looking for the energy usage information where most consumers never look, tucked up under the hood, on the side panels and only on one out of every five appliances was it easily visible. Selection of appliances was based on best energy consumption values and price within an overall budget of $7,000 for appliances and $2,000 for lighting.

Based on these approximations we can expect to save approximately $255.36 each year. Over a fourteen-year period life span we expect to save more than $ 3575.04. This is based on a cost of eight cents per kilowatt-hour, including taxes, in Canadian dollars in 2001. If electricity costs increased then obviously the savings would increase. Other important factors include water savings with both the washing machine and dishwasher, which are significant. Rather than selecting the ultra efficient Sun Frost refrigerator, which uses approximately half of the energy of the Maytag we selected, we chose to take the approximately $2000 we saved in the price and apply it to additional PV solar panels to offset the added energy requirements of the Maytag.

The other factor to consider is quality of design, which will affect the expected life span of these products. The appliances we've selected in general are regarded as higher quality than the "average" models and in general are expected to last longer and have fewer costly problems through their life span. This cost of quality may save us an additional approximately $1000-3000, not including the hassles involved with repair or replacement. Given all of the risks and unknowns about the future we believe that our original investment will pay for itself in the first five to seven years providing us with up to seven more years of extra savings which we can invest elsewhere. The other benefit, which currently does not affect the bottom line, is the reduced amount of pollution these efficient machines will produce. Again, if government/public policy is changed to include the cost of environmental damage in the use of energy then our investment could be substantially greater.

¹ The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices

² EnerGuide Appliance Directory 2001