Electricity cost calculator for any appliance

How running cost is worked out

Every electric appliance turns power into energy over time. Power is in watts (W). Energy is in kilowatt hours (kWh), the unit on your bill.

• kWh = watts × hours ÷ 1,000.
• Cost in dollars = kWh × your rate in c/kWh ÷ 100.
• A year = the cost of a day × the days you use it. Heaters, blankets and pool pumps are seasonal, so a year is not always 365 days.

The SA Government and Sustainability Victoria give the same method. We use the usage rate only. The daily supply charge is paid whatever you run, so it is not a running cost.

This is the cost while the appliance is switched on. Some appliances also draw power when they are off or asleep. A game console in sleep or rest mode is one: see what a console costs on standby.

Why the real cost is often lower: duty cycle

The watts on the rating plate are the most the appliance draws. Heaters, fridges and dehumidifiers have a thermostat or humidistat that switches them off part of the time. The share of time an appliance spends at full power is its duty cycle.

• CHOICE’s lab tests found an oil column heater drew about 1.62 kWh an hour from its 2,400 W rating, about 68%. It drew less power on average, so it also gave less heat. A fan heater ran close to 100%.
• A heater in a cold, draughty room may still run flat out. So we only use a lower share where a test supports it, and show 100% (full power, the ceiling) everywhere else.
• An air fryer cycles too: its thermostat switches the element on and off while it cooks. See how much electricity an air fryer uses, from measured tests.
• Change the share under Advanced settings if you know how your appliance behaves.

Using the Energy Rating label

If your appliance has an Energy Rating label, its kWh a year is the best figure you have. It comes from a standard test, not a guess.

• Type it into “Label kWh a year”. It replaces watts × hours.
• The label assumes a set amount of use for each product type. A dryer label assumes one load a week, a dishwasher label 7 washes a week, and a TV label 10 hours a day. We scale the label from that use to yours, and show the factor in the worked steps.
• A fridge or hot water label is already a year of normal use, so we use it as is.
• Air conditioners run at part load, so we cost them from their energy label: use the air conditioner running cost calculator.
• Compare the kWh between models, not the stars. Star scales have changed over the years.

Running an appliance on your own solar

When an appliance runs on power from your own panels, you do not pay the import rate. You give up the feed-in credit you would have earned by exporting that power instead. That credit is usually a few cents per kWh, so moving a load such as a pool pump or hot water into the middle of the day can cut its cost sharply.

Set “Power from” to “My solar panels” to see that cost. Only the share of use that really runs on solar gets this rate, so treat it as the best case.

Check before you rely on it

Every default on this page has a source or is marked as an estimate in the tables under “How we calculated this”. Electricity rates change every 1 July. Type the usage rate from your own bill for the most accurate answer.