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  Purdue Energy Forum
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Poster advertising the Kill-A-Watt Meter at the library.
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Kill-A-Watt Meter
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West Lafayette Library 208 West Columbia Street; West Lafayette Indiana, 47906. (765) 743 2261

Westside Public Library
April 5th, 2012

How would you like to be able to measure the electricity that decides how much your energy bill will be every month?  Now you can! Thanks to Purdue Energy Forum (PEF).  PEF has donated 2 Kill-A-Watt meters to the West Lafayette Library that can be checked out by the community to personally assess the energy usage in their homes.  Many people may not realize that leaving a cell phone or computer plugged in can draw out enough current which, can all add up to a significant cost in a month's time.

A kilowatt hour (kWh) is a measure of energy that signifies power consumed over a period of time, in the case of a kWh, that time is in hours. One kilowatt hour by one hour of running time will give you one kilowatt. 
Did you know that the average household uses roughly 29 kWh per day?  
You can calculate how much wattage a particular device uses by looking at the wattage of the particular device.  Take for instance something familiar, like a 100 watt light bulb.  If it runs continuously for a month, the cycle of an electric bill, it will run for about 730 hours.  Using the price of the current energy rate, 8.2 cents per kWh, take the 100W times the hours used (730) then divide it by 1000 to get to kWh then finally multiply that number by 0.082. The cost for that one light bulb will be roughly six dollars for the month. 

The Kill-A-Watt meters available at the West Lafayette Library can help calculate what may be costing you so much on your electricity bill.  Instructions on how to use the meter are available at their website or you obtain a copy with the meter when you check it out for
your personal energy usage evaluation!
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