As I looked at the amount of extra power our solar PV system was making and I got interested in using the extra power to fuel an electric car, I became interested in increasing the miles I could drive with clean solar power. One way would be to add more solar panels. That would be expensive, probably $4,000 to add enough extra panels to make it worthwhile. And our solar inverter would need to be replaced or an additional one added to handle the extra voltage, not to mention finding the extra roof space, getting HOA and other approvals, etc.
BUT, using less power is the same as making more power. The Cash For Appliances program got me thinking about how much less power we would use if we replaced our 20 year-old refrigerator. I didn't expect it to be much of a power savings, but I was surprised, as you'll see.
Why is this Refrigerator Smiling, and Winking?
As I researched the Cash For Appliances eligible refrigerators, I found that some of the best 25 cu ft Energy Star fridges use as little as 500 kWh per year. Our 20 year-old 21 cu ft fridge used about 1,200 kWh per year, according to information that I could find on the Internet. That's a savings of about 700 kWh. We should be able to drive more than 3 miles for each kWh in the electric cars that are coming soon, so that is over 2,000 extra miles each year that we could drive on clean power by getting a new fridge.
We found that money was still available in the California Cash For Appliances program, and that we could get a rebate of $200 for a qualifying fridge. We could also get $100 from our electric utility, Southern California Edison, for buying the new fridge and for recycling the old one through them. We found a great sale price on a fridge that we liked at Best Buy. After the rebates, we spent about $1,500 for the new fridge. Driving 2,500 gas-free miles each year will save us about $165 per year in gas for our Prius, if gas prices stay the same as they are now. So the new fridge will pay for itself in about 9 years. But meanwhile, we can drive those miles pollution-free and free of foreign oil. So we'll be happy with the payback period. Not to mention that we are really enjoying a terrific new fridge to replace that smaller 20 year-old one.
After having the new fridge for two months, I'm seeing at least as much energy savings as I predicted. It's possible that the savings will be even greater. I'm having fun tracking our power usage these days.
Here's a link to the Cash For Appliances program in California. New types of appliances have recently been added to the program: http://www.cash4appliances.ca.gov/
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