Reducing Electricity Usage – A Reason to Celebrate
I recently received my latest utility bill from AmerenCILCO and found that my electricity usage continues to decline. For the 7th consecutive month, my killowatt-hours used have declined compared to the same month of the previous year. See the chart below for the data of total kilowatt-hours used by billing period month by month.
-
Bill Date
2007 Total KWH
2008 Total KWH
Difference
8/12/08
1338.0
1282.0
-56
9/11/08
1755.0
955.0
-800
10/10/08
1256.0
673.0
-583
11/10/08
923.0
494.0
-429
12/11/08
731.0
690.0
-41
1/14/08
1170.0
858.0
-312
2/12/09
1026.0
691.0
-335
8199
5643
-2556
If you simply divide the 2008 usage by the 2007 usage over the same period, that is about a 31% drop in energy usage.
Ameren provides the amount of electric KWH usage by day.
-
Bill Date
2007 KWH – Usage Per Day
2008 KWH – Usage Per Day
Difference
8/12/08
47.7
44.2
-3.5
9/11/08
53.1
29.8
-23.3
10/10/08
46.5
23.2
-23.3
11/10/08
29.7
17.0
-12.7
12/11/08
22.8
20.9
-1.9
1/14/08
33.4
25.2
-8.2
2/12/09
34.2
23.8
-10.4
Accounting for the reduction
My wife and I were discussing exactly what the difference was between 2008 and 2007 to account for the reduction.
- Was is the thermostat settings? In 2007, we were already adjusting our thermostat to 68 degrees in the winter and 74 degrees in the summer. While we may have been more consistent in keeping the thermostat changed, I doubt that would account for a large portion of the reduction.
- Did the weather impact the use of the furnace? Ameren reports the average temperature on the utility bills. There were certainly month to month differences in average temperature by as much as 6 degrees either direction. For example, a temperate September in 2008 was 70 degrees when it was 76 in 2007. However, the last 3 months of the winter have been consistently colder than last year, so the use of the HVAC would have been heavier. So, I can’t account for temperature.
- What about the phantom load? We have done a better job at turing off the power strip on the television entertainment center at night, so there will be a bit of savings there.
- Lighting the way with CFLs. We believe the biggest difference has to come from lighting. The conversion to energy efficient lighting has been a work in progress. However, in the middle of 2008 I had reached a point when nearly every light fixture in the house had a CFL installed. The only fixture that hasn’t changed yet is the dining room ceiling fixture that requires dimmible, candle-shaped CFLs which are pricey at the moment.
Certainly, all of these steps have made an impact on reducing my energy usage, my ecological footprint, and the finincial impact on my wallet. I am happy to see tangible results of going green. It will be interesting to see if I can keep dropping my electricity usage this year. I am getting to the point where I have picked all of the low hanging fruit, and further improvements will be more cost intensive such as insulating my attic and installing timers on certain light switches.
