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Measuring the Power Consumption of GFCI and AFCI circuits

Modern US homes have a lot more electrical circuit protection than they once had. Ground and Arc fault circuits are great at preventing electrocution and house fires.  What is their power consumption?

It's hard to be completely accurate here, but I've measured a bunch using a combination of my Kill-o-watt meter and my Emporia Gen 2 Vue.


GFCI AFCI Circuit Breakers
 

My measurements suggest that these devices use roughly 0.5 watts each.  In total, that works out to 4.4 KWh per GFCI/AFCI per year:

(0.5 watts x 8766 hrs/year) ÷ 1000 watts/KW = 4.383 KWh/year

Again, this is an estimate. It could be 3.5 or 4.8 KWh per year, but you get the idea. 

Total GFCI / AFCI Load On My Electricity Bill

I have 27 circuits with these features (18 modern breakers and 9 outlets). So multiplying 4.383 KWh/year by 27 circuits, and we get a total draw of 118.3 KWh/year. That's a measurable amount of money.  That's about $142 per decade using today's US-average electricity cost.

The Cost/Value of GFCI / AFCI

So is it worth spending $142 a decade for these devices?  Here's the way I look at it:

  • Fewer of these would reduce electricity use.
  • My full collection of these is less than 1/6th the draw of a single traditional incandescent light bulb.
  • A fire or electrocution could easily be hundreds or thousands of times more expensive than $142.

Savings opportunities

Here are some ideas to save some costs without reducing protection

  • Using GFCI breakers that protect many outlets are likely more cost and power efficient than GFCI outlets that only protect only one outlet: itself.
  • Simply turn off the circuits that are not in use.
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