The ENERGY STAR logo is the government’s stamp of approval for products that are energy-efficient and good for the environment. Knowing which products can save you money on your energy bill is a big help. To understand ENERGY STAR reports, it is helpful to learn these basic concepts:
- Life Cycle Costs — This is the cost history of an appliance for its projected life. Included are the purchase price and utility costs for that entire period of time.
- Payback Period — If an ENERGY STAR appliance has a higher sticker price than a standard model, you can figure out how many months or years it will take you to earn back in energy savings the additional amount you paid for the energy-efficient product. If the pay back period is zero, this simply means that the ENERGY STAR product costs the same, or less, than the standard model.
- kWh — stands for kilowatts per hour. We use this unit to measure the energy consumption of all electrical appliances.
- BTU — stands for British Thermal Units. Sometimes you will see "therms." This is the unit we use for measuring the energy consumption of gas appliances.
- Efficiency Rate — This number refers to how much heat, or energy, is actually transferred to the food you are cooking. So, if the efficiency rate of an appliance is 40%, this means that 60% of the heat is wasted. When discussing efficiency ratings, a higher number is always desirable.
Finding Hidden Costs
One of the goals of the ENERGY STAR program is to draw attention to "hidden costs," or the expense of operating restaurant equipment, in terms of gas, electricity and water.
You can find Life Cycle Cost Estimators on many websites these days. Besides highlighting the hidden costs of commercial kitchen equipment, they are designed to give you the pay-back period, as well. Unfortunately, Life Cycle Cost Estimators are not always very user friendly, but the more you play with them, the more comfortable you will become. Until then, here are a few pointers to keep in mind the next time you go shopping:
- If a product is poorly designed in terms of how it uses energy, no amount of BTUs can improve it or compensate for its inefficiency. It will continue to waste most of the energy it generates. On the other hand, with the right technology and a well-engineered design, an appliance can cook with a smaller number of BTUs, wasting hardly any energy at all.
- ENERGY STAR ratings do not exist for every category of kitchen equipment, but you can do some research of your own to determine which models are the most energy efficient. Some brands will even surpass the standards of ENERGY STAR, so look at the numbers.
- There is no need to trade speed for energy-efficiency. The goal should always be to get the best quality for the best price. If the product performs poorly, there is little value in it being energy-efficient.
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