First things first! You’ve probably heard the old adage, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Well, when it comes to energy use, that couldn’t be more true. Especially when considering electricity because it isn’t something that you can see or feel unless something has gone terribly wrong!
My favorite example of this is what can be referred to as the “Prius Effect.” This may come as a shock to everyone, but I drive a Toyota Prius. You know, one of those bubble looking things that runs partly on electric, partly on gasoline and sometimes both at the same time. Often seen sporting a “Coexist,” “Buy Fresh Buy Local,” and/or a “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” bumper sticker. Well, the Prius has this cool little feature that allows you to see your real-time gas mileage as you drive (see below). It turns out that when you present a person with real time consumption data, they have a tendency to change their consumption habits for the better. This screen shows you how breaking and use of the throttle can dramatically impact your fuel economy. It’s like a video game where every time you drive your car, you’re trying to achieve a new high score.
This data/behavior relationship is also true for your home. However, If you’re like most people (my electric company pays me, but more to come on that), you probably receive a bill from your electricity provider every month with some mysterious dollar amount that they claim you owe them. You might have some idea where all that cost is coming from, but mostly it’s a guess. If you had a way of telling where electricity was being used, you might be able to intelligently impact that number and keep some of your money.
Well, good news! There are now many devices on the market at various price ranges that allow you to see where you’re spending money and some even tell you what you can do about it.
The first and least expensive is one of my personal favorites. It’s the Kill-A-Watt EZ from P3 International and can be purchase from your local Home Depot or similar store for less than $30.
The Kill-A-Watt EZ can simply be plugged into an outlet near an electronic device. Once plugged in, you can enter what you pay per kilowatt hour (which you can find on you electric bill) and plug the device you would like to measure into the Kill-A-Watt. Use the device you’ve connected to the Kill-A-Watt and it will tell you what that device costs you in the way of electricity use on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. The longer you use the Kill-A-Watt with the device you are measuring, the more reliable the cost/consumption data.
Here’s a nice video on how it works.
If you’re looking to start with some big consumption items to measure with the Kill-A-Watt, try your refrigerator as they are one of the largest energy hogs in most homes especially if your refrigerator is not EnergyStar rated. In fact, if you have an older refrigerator, which is the beer fridge in a lot of homes, it’s probably costing you at least $100/year over what an EnergyStar qualified refrigerator would, which makes for some expensive beer! Check out USEPA’s EnergyStar information on refrigerators for more information. You can even plug in information about your refrigerator on their site and it will tell you how much it’s costing you.
That’s it for now. Next time, more on whole house energy monitors like the Powerhouse Dynamics Emonitor, which I have installed in my home, as well as information on phantom power.
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