The biggest energy user, by far, in your kitchen is the refrigerator, which is responsible for up to 8% of the energy use in the home. Other important energy users, but which are much smaller by comparison, include the dishwasher, stove (which only uses about $3-$4 a month of electricity) and lighting. If you have a kitchen fan that vents to the outside, that too can be a big energy drain, because all the air that it is venting to the outside is the air that your furnace worked so hard to heat, and it is going to be replaced with cold air - that has to be heated.

None of the other appliances in the kitchen are big energy drains, in large part because they are only used for minutes at a time, if not seconds.

What you can do:

• The big energy drain on the dishwasher is the drying cycle. It uses 6 times as much energy as the wash cycle. If your dishwasher has the option, skip the drying cycle.
• Run your outside venting kitchen fan only as long as necessary.
• Use your microwave whenever possible in place of your stove or oven

Savings:

• Not using the drying cycle on the dishwasher will save up to $60 dollars/year, if you use the dishwasher once a day.
• Other savings are going to be relatively small, because the amount of energy used in the kitchen is relatively little.

Learn more on our Dishwasher, Lighting and Refrigerator pages.