What a Nugget Ice Maker Costs to Run

This page exists because of a gap we found while researching this site: roundups in this category do not publish running costs at all, and the pages that do are single-model, years old, and built on a wattage figure with no stated source. So here is the multi-model version, with every input cited.

First, the distinction everything else depends on

There are two kinds of electrical figure on an appliance and they are not interchangeable.

• A published power consumption, in watts. This is what the machine uses. Frigidaire publishes one for all three of its machines and NewAir publishes one for the NIM030SS00. When we have this, the cost figure is close to real.
• A nameplate rating, in volts and amps. Multiply them and you get volt-amps, which is the maximum the appliance may draw, used for sizing circuits. It is not consumption. A cycling compressor appliance draws less than its nameplate while running and nothing while idle. When this is all we have, the cost figure is a ceiling and we label it one.

This is why our tables head the column Max $/mo rather than "cost to run". The label carries the honesty.

The formula, in full

Worked, for the Frigidaire EFIC255 at its published 185 W: 0.185 kW × 4 hours = 0.74 kWh a day. × 30 = 22.2 kWh a month. × $0.18 = $4.00.

Worked, for the GE Profile Opal 2.0 at its 3.0 A nameplate: 120 V × 3.0 A = 360 VA. 0.36 kW × 4 = 1.44 kWh a day. × 30 = 43.2 kWh. × $0.18 = $7.78, as a ceiling.

Run it with your own numbers

Your electricity rate and your usage are not ours. Change them.

The cheapest machine to run on this site's figures is a cheap bullet machine: the Frigidaire EFIC189 manual prints 105 W, about $2.27 a month on the scenario below. Among nugget machines the lowest published figure is Cowsar's 136 W, about $2.94. What that figure is worth, and what the brand does not publish, is on the Cowsar review.

Every machine we have data for

Read the parenthetical in the cost column. "(published W)" means the figure comes from a wattage the manufacturer printed; "(nameplate)" means we derived a ceiling because no wattage exists. Comparing one against the other tells you less than it looks like it does.

The Opal case, in detail

The electricity rate

Our default is $0.18/kWh, rounded from the EIA's Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A: 18.34 cents per kWh, US residential average, June 2026.

A national average is a starting point, not an answer. State residential rates range from roughly 11 cents to over 40 cents, so somebody in Hawaii pays more than double what somebody in North Dakota pays for exactly the same machine. Put your own rate into the calculator above; it is on your bill.

We re-check the EIA figure twice a year. If it moves materially, the defaults on this site move with it and the change is noted here.

The duty cycle, and why we do not pretend to know it

Four running hours a day is our default scenario and it is an assumption, not a measurement. We do not know your household. What we will not do is bury that assumption and present a single confident monthly figure, which is exactly what the existing running-cost pages in this category do.

What actually drives your bill

• How often you empty the bin. This is the big one. The bin is not refrigerated, so the machine constantly replaces melted ice. Take ice out and it runs more. Leave it alone and it still runs, just less.
• Room temperature and inlet water temperature. The original Opal manual specifies an operating range of 55F to 90F. A hot kitchen makes the machine work harder for the same ice.
• Clearance. 3 to 4 inches per the manuals. A machine that cannot shed heat runs longer, and running longer is the same as costing more.
• Scale. A scaled freezing cylinder transfers heat worse, so the machine runs longer for less ice. Descaling is a running-cost measure as much as a maintenance one. See descaling.
• Hours, which you control entirely. Every figure on this page assumes four running hours a day. A machine left switched on cycles to replace the ice melting in its unrefrigerated bin, so the hours — and the bill — scale with that decision. Worked through on leaving a nugget ice maker on all the time.

What we are not claiming

We do not own a watt meter and we have not metered any of these machines. Every figure here is arithmetic on a published input, which means you can reproduce all of it with the same documents and a calculator. That reproducibility is the entire authority claim this site makes, and it is set out on our method page.