SAVING ENERGY IN THE KITCHEN

Saving electricity is not just a question of conscience. By folowing a few simple provisions each day and using available technology to reduce energy consumption, not only do you protect the environment but you reduce the impact excessive energy consumption can have on your family budget. Starting with the kitchen.

Refrigerators and freezers
Refrigerators and freezers are the appliances that have the greatest effect on your kitchen's electric bill. Pratically speaking they are always on. Therefore it's very important to try to make them as efficient as possible to reduce waste which adds up to a significant amount at the end of the year.
The first step is undoubtably to choose an appliance whose size corresponds to the real needs of your family.
Second, you must periodically check the seals and apply some simple maintenance guidelines that will lengthen the life of your appliance as much as possible. For example, regularly clean the seals with warm water and dry them, then check the integrity of the seal with a simple piece of paper: insert the paper between the seal and the body of the refrigerator at different locations; if the seal is tight the paper will not fall.
Cleaning other parts of the refrigerator can also contribute to energy savings: a dust covered condensing coil will reduce the efficiency of the appliance and shorten its life. Just clean it a few times a year with an appropriate brush.

Stoves and burners
It is well to remember that some small electric appliances, which sometimes can be used in place of the stove or burners, generally consume much less electricity (like, for example the toaster). When you must necessarily use the stove or the burners, it is always a good habit to plan the preparation of your meals in such a way that you don't have dead times where the stove or burners continue burning energy unecessarily.
Remember that pre-heating your oven is only necessary for foods that contain powdered yeast and is just a waste for cooking meat or roasts.
You also save heat and therefore energy by not frequently opening the stove door or peering inside covered pots. And the pots you use should be of an appropriate size for the food you are cooking; if they contain extra water remember that you must spend energy to heat that water.
Another good habit is to turn off the stove or grill a short time before you finish cooking. That way the accumulated heat can finish the cooking without using additional energy.

Lighting
Although lighting consumes much less energy than electrical appliances, it is still possible to adopt measures to (greatly) reduce their energy consumption. Not everyone is aware of the advantages offered by (energy saving) fluorescent lights with respect to traditional incandescent lights. For each watt (a measure of energy consumption) fluorescent lights furnish many more lumens (a measure of the quantity of light, useful for measuring the efficiency of a light bulb). Traditional light bulbs transform almost 90% of the energy consumed into heat. They produce from 17 to 23 lumens per watt whereas energy saving fluorescent lights can yield from three to four times as much in terms of light produced!
Fluorescent light bulbs are not cheap to buy, but they are much more economical in situations where the light stays on continuously for several hours a day. So they are definitely advantageous in a place like the kitchen. And the average life span of a fluorescent bulb is much longer than that of an incandescent bulb, by about ten times (9,000-10,000 hours compared to 750-1,000 hours)!
And today, the quality of the light produced by fluorescent bulbs has improved a lot, to the point where they almost perfectly reproduce the warm colors of traditional light bulbs.

source:scovoloni LINK related link on how to save power