A new metric for measuring the performance of heat transfer devices, which require the consumption of mechanical power to function, is proposed. The proposed Energy-Utilization Metric, EUM, is derived to quantify the achieved heat transfer rate per unit consumed mechanical power. By virtue of its definition, using the EUM as a preference metric between different heat transfer devices guarantees the selection of the design with the best energy-utilization characteristics or in other words the device which meets the required heat load with the minimum amount of consumed pumping power. The