Unalaska, AK – It costs about $28 per month to run a large copy machine. It costs around $117 per month to run a small electric heater. How do you know? A Kill A Watt meter can tell you. Now you can check out a small grey box from the Public Library that tells you how much energy each of your appliances and other plug-in units use. City hall staff tested the copier and the heater. City Finance Director Tanya Miller said Cat Hazen suggested that the city make the small units available to community members so they can measure how much power they use in their homes.

"It's a great way for us to see, as we are trying to conserve energy, just to see how much the gadgets we are running at home cost us," said Miller.

The units are already pre-programmed with the city's rates. "And so you can plug the machine into the wall and you plug an appliance or something into the machine and then it will show you how much that will cost you per month based on our rates."

The longer you leave a unit plugged in, the more accurate the estimate. The city spent about $25 on each of the 10 units. You can check them out for two week periods at the library using your regular library card.