Abstract
Do you know how much power is used every day in your home? What you might not realize is that making simple changes can save you energy, power, and money. What would you do with extra money? Put it in the bank or get something that you really want? In this science fair project, you will investigate the different uses of electricity in your home and determine if there are simple changes that you can make to save energy and money.Objective
To investigate the different uses of electricity in your home and to find ways to save power and energy.
Introduction
Saving energy in your home is a great idea for several reasons. First, a large percentage of the energy that most people currently use comes from burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuels contain hydrogen and carbon, which are known as hydrocarbons. Most of the energy contained in fossil fuels comes from the combustion of their hydrogen. The carbon that is released is a source of pollution. Carbon combines with the oxygen in the air to create carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx) are also created by burning fossil fuels and contribute to acid rain. If we cut down on burning fossil fuels, we cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. In the year 2002, 39% of the world's energy came from petroleum, 24% of the world's energy came from coal, and 23% of the world's energy came from natural gas—all fossil fuels (Scheckel). In 2002, most of the electricity used in the United States was created by burning coal.
While helping the environment is a great reason to save energy, another great reason to save energy is to save money. Saving a few dollars every month doesn't sound exciting, but at the end of the year, your family could end up with several hundred dollars. That could mean a pretty cool family vacation or maybe your parents would let you spend some on a video game or new gaming system!
The amount of energy that you and your family use in your house is recorded by the power company. The power company charges your family for the number of kilowatt-hours (kWh) that your household consumes. Every house or apartment that is supplied with electric energy has a watt-hour meter outside on the side of the building, which keeps track of the amount of energy that is consumed.
Consumption is the amount of power used by an appliance or a whole house or apartment over time. The amount of electric energy that you consume is also known as power consumption. Power consumption is the product of the power that you use, measured in kilowatts, and the total time in which you used that power, measured in hours.
There are many things that affect power consumption in your home: the kinds of appliances that you have and how energy-efficient they are, how often and how long you use the appliances, and your own personal habits. For example, many people heat their homes excessively during winter. You can save energy by setting the thermostat in your home to 68°F in the winter and to 78°F in the summer. Sometimes people go to sleep with all of the lights on. If you have a 100-watt (W) lightbulb in your lamp and you leave it on for 1 hour while you sleep, you are losing 0.1 kWh. If you leave the 100-W lightbulb on for 10 hours, you will lose 1 kWh. It doesn't sound like much, but if the light was left on every night for the whole year, it would add up to a lot of wasted energy. You could save a few kilowatt-hours by turning off the lights at night or switching over to more energy-efficient lightbulbs.
In this science fair project, you will find out how much energy appliances in your household consume in one day. Try to investigate three or four different appliances. You might be surprised to see that some of the appliances that you choose are using energy even when they appear to be off. These appliances are called phantom loads. Once you have found out how much energy your household uses in a day, try making improvements to your power consumption. They don't have to be big changes. You could just try eliminating phantom loads. Remember that many small efforts can lead to big change!
Terms, Concepts and Questions to Start Background Research
Bibliography
The following resource offers a good introduction on energy, power, and saving energy. It also has good ideas on saving energy in your home.
To help you understand the terminology used when discussing energy and power, check out the following website.
Read the following Wikipedia entry to learn how to use your home's watt-hour meter to calculate power consumption:
To learn about the different areas that the United States Department of Energy is researching, go to their website:
For help creating a graph, visit this website:
Materials and Equipment
Experimental Procedure
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| Figure 1. The Kill a Watt meter is testing the power consumption of a microwave oven. |
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| Figure 2. Energy is being supplied to the microwave oven through the Kill a Watt meter. |
| Appliance | Total Daily "On" Hours | Daily Power Consumption (KWH) (reading from the Kill a Watt meter) |
| Appliance 1 | Day 1 | |
| Day 2 | ||
| Day 3 | ||
| Average | Average | |
| Appliance 2 | Day 1 | |
| Day 2 | ||
| Day 3 | ||
| Average | Average | |
| Appliance 3 | Day 1 | |
| Day 2 | ||
| Day 3 | ||
| Average | Average | |
| Appliance 4 | Day 1 | |
| Day 2 | ||
| Day 3 | ||
| Average | Average | |
| Estimated Household Daily Average Power Consumption: | ||
Variations
Credits
Michelle Maranowski, PhD, Science Buddies
Last edit date: 2008-09-16 18:00:00
If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring careers in Energy & Power.
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