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Home Energy Calculator

In MoMA's permanent collection

This interactive visualization for GE, designed at Pentagram, helps make home appliance energy usage more understandable.

It was exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition, Talk to Me, and part of their permanent collection.

The GE Data Visualization site header: the GE monogram beside the words DATA VISUALIZATION, with Home and About links at the rightThe Home Energy Calculator: a grid of household appliance icons ordered by consumption, with dropdowns for unit, time period, and state, and a tooltip reading 'Coffee machine $24.56'
The entrance wall of the Talk to Me exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art: an orange TALK TO ME wordmark set into a wall of black-and-white pixel illustrations, with visitors walking past
Photo from Interventions Journal
Visitors at the Museum of Modern Art standing at a monitor running the Home Energy Calculator, the wall label beside it

Part of General Electric's Ecomagination environmental-awareness and education program, this website helps put energy consumption into perspective by expressing abstract measurements—watts and kilowatt-hours—in an easily understandable form. Commonly used appliances appear in descending order of wattage consumption, cost, gas usage, or kilowatt-hour performance; energy usage can be estimated by year, month, or day. The program lets homeowners know when an upgrade to an energy-efficient Energy Star appliance will save money—and how long it will take for the savings to kick in.

— MoMA