I've Come to Drain Your Wallet!

I mentioned in a previous post how I use my home energy monitor to track phantom power and how much that power sucks from my wallet on an annual basis.  Phantom power, just to reiterate, is power that electronic devices consume even while they’re not in use.  You may also hear this referred to as "vampire" or "standby" power and a large number of electronic devices consume it.  In fact, according to the US Department of Energy, between five and ten percent of all residential power consumption in the US is phantom use and likely not necessary for operation of the device.

Devices in my home that were particularly large users of phantom power were my televisions, my DVR, and other entertainment system related devices. I have two primary home entertainment setups in my home; one in my living room and one in my family/daughter’s playroom.  Through use of my energy monitor I found that my living room setup was consuming 47 watts in standby power all the time even if I never turned a single device on. My daughter’s playroom setup was consuming 32 watts all the time. So how much was that costing me, you might ask? Here are some definitions and the math:

1,000 watts = 1 kilowatt or another way of stating this is 1 watt = 0.001 kilowatt

24 hours in a day

365 days in a year

24 hours x 365 days in a year = 8,760 hours in a calendar year

So, if you’re looking to calculate kilowatt hours (kWh) you multiply the amount of energy a device is using by the number of hours that it’s actually using that energy.  When considering phantom power, the electricity being drawn is constant, so in the case of my living room entertainment system the case is as follows:

0.047 kWh x 8,760 hours = 411.72 kWh

I then take this 411.72 kWh and multiply it by what I pay my electric utility company per kWh, which is approximately $0.12 per kilowatt hour.

411.72 kWh x $0.12/kWh = $49.41 per year in wasted money!

I can think of a lot of better uses for my $50 than throwing it at my utility provider for no apparent reason.  On top of this, the playroom setup was costing me an additional $33.64 per year.  OK, so this might not seem like a lot of money, but think of all of the other devices in your home that are constantly sucking power. If you have computers and monitor plugged in constantly, you can probably multiply this amount.  They quickly add up and result in billions (yes billions!) of dollars being wasted across the US each year, and growing, along with lots of bad things being put into the air that we breathe and water that we drink for no apparent reason.

My fix for this is shown below. It’s simple and cheap, paying for itself in both situations in about a year or less.  The way these power strips works is that a television is plugged into the “master” plug in the strip.  When the strip senses that you’ve turned off the power to the television, it cuts the power to the rest of the devices plugged into the strip.  There are “always on” plugs on the opposite side of the strip that allows you to leave power supplied to devices that, for one reason or another, you may want to leave plugged in. The strips also function as surge protectors.

360 Electrical's GreenSurge Device

Rocketfish 12 Outlet Surge Protector

This little device took the standby power in my living room from 47 watts to 7 saving me about $42 per year and the strip only cost $39.  I purchased a new EnergyStar rated television for the playroom due to the fact that the old television was starting to die.  This TV has internet widgets and allowed me to replace my TiVo with built-in Hulu Plus and Netflix apps.  This decreased the number of devices I had to have plugged in and the TV also has a proximity sensor built into it that automatically turns the device off after 15 minutes if no one is in the room watching it. All of these bells and whistles took my standby power from 32 watts down to 13 saving me $20/year and preventing my daughter from leaving the room and allowing the TV to run for hours for no reason.  I’m also getting closer to firing my cable company with this setup, but more on the energy implications of this later.

CNET has a good resource page to help you figure out what all of those entertainment related vampires are costing you, but the best method is to monitor yourself as usage levels can vary based on internal setting in many of these devices.  Lastly, when purchasing new appliances and electronics, always look for the EnergyStar label.

Happy vampire hunting!

My Home Energy Monitor

In my last post I listed a chart that showed a breakdown of my home's energy use, energy production from my photovoltaic system, and my utility meter from mid January of this year through yesterday.  This chart was generated by my Powerhouse Dynamics Emonitor, which is cool little device that monitors all twenty-four electrical circuits in my home and beams that information over the internet to an API that tracks and trends a wealth of information.


Every electron flowing to an electronic device in my home is accounted for, which allows me to look deep inside the workings of my home and identify those appliances that will keep my kids out of expensive private colleges!  The API rolls up the data to show me the big offenders, such as my air conditioner, as well as those phantom power sucking little guys like my TiVo.

The eMonitor dashboard shows the amount of power I'm producing (none at the moment since the sun has already set), what I'm using, and how much energy I'm pulling from the electric utility.  Also listed here is my carbon footprint, which in my case is zero due to our producing more energy than we consume.

You'll also notice the "Phantom Power" icon, which shows those devices that are drawing power nearly constantly.  These could be items such as cable boxes, DVRs, old stereos or other appliances.  As you can see, phantom power can cost you a significant amount of money over time.  I've got some handy, simple and cheap fixes for this that I'll discuss in a future post.

The pie chart shows me where I'm using energy on a 30-day rollup basis, where I stand as far as cost for the month, and what the top four energy offenders are (Bad air conditioner!).

With this data I am able to both drive my family crazy through frequent consumption lectures and, at the same time, identify where I can make changes to save cash.  I can easily justify replacing old appliances based on cost or simply choose to unplug those energy wasters that are not in use. The eMonitor even has a report card and gives me tips on how to reduce my consumption.


The additional interesting capability of the eMonitor is that it can control other "smart" (Zigbee) devices in you home, such as a WiFi enabled thermostat like the one that I own (more on this later).


Probably the most amazing feature of the Powerhouse Dynamics eMonitor is the fact that I can monitor my home electric use through the internet no matter where I am (there's even an iPhone app).  No more worrying about leaving a light or the oven on! As it will even text me alerts if something doesn't seem right. Since I can also control my thermostat with it, I can turn off my air conditioner (my largest electricity user) when I leave for a few days and turn it back on with my smartphone from the road on my return. I recently learned that WiFi enabled electrical outlets will be added to the eMonitor offering, which will allow me to be able to remotely control individual appliances.


The eMonitor can be purchased from Amazon.com and other retailers. I purchased mine from energycircle.com and prices vary depending on the number of circuits you would want to monitor and if you would also like to include power production (solar, wind, etc...).  While it is a bit pricey you'll likely recoup your money in a few years time (or less) with the savings you'll be able to achieve once you have the energy use data in hand.


I chose the eMonitor due to the fact that is was the only circuit by circuit energy monitor on the market at the time (January 2011).  There are others devices on the market that monitor a few circuits, such as the TED device that I've heard good things about, but to me, the extra information provided by the eMonitor saved me time in chasing down the energy wasters in my home, so there was some extra value there.


I was able to install the device myself, but I wouldn't recommend that job for just anyone.  Placement of the sensors that connect from the hot wire on each electrical circuit to the eMonitor requires you to remove the cover and place your hands inside of your circuit breaker box. I did this with the power shut off (and locked out) at the main coming into my house, on a weekend with my wife and kids away.


Anyway, I wanted to mention that I learned about the eMonitor from the TWiT Green Tech Today netcast, which I've embedded below.  I also wanted to mention that Jason Chen over at Lifehacker recently wrote a great review (much better than mine) that I would also recommend.



For those searching for a commercial solution, Powerhouse Dynamics now has a version of the emonitor for you as well.


Happy monitoring!

Starting Off Slow… How to Kill-A-Watt

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.

http://youtu.be/9-EA3Zhgy9c

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.