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When you buy a light bulb or a microwave, it tells you how many watts it is.
But when you get your electricity bill, it measures power in something called kilowatt
hours. What is that?
Well, if you have a thousand watt microwave that means for every second it is on it is
drawing a thousand watts of power. If you ran your microwave for an hour you
used a thousand watts for an hour—OR, a kilowatt hour.
The fewer watts something uses, the longer it takes to up a whole kilowatt hour.
For example, a compact fluorescent light bulb, would take forty hours to use an entire kilowatt
hour. But an average vacuum cleaner uses a kilowatt
hour of electricity in about an hour and a half.
This might get you thinking about how much electricity those appliances of yours are
consuming. Just think: a 1980's-era refrigerator uses
about 1,400 kilowatt hours a YEAR. A modern energy-efficient fridge uses about
350 kilowatt hours a year. That's FOUR TIMES more efficient.
Ontario's a big province A typical house uses about 9600 kilowatt hours
a year. That means we use 45 BILLION kilowatt hours.
SO if everyone used just a little bit less, we'd save a whole lot.
To learn more about how you can save energy, save money and how Ontario is building clean
energy, visit Ontario dot ca, slash empower me.
Tell us what you think: Follow us on Twitter #ONenergy @OntMinEnergy