No Fooling!
It may be April Fools' Day, but this post is… for real.
In case you’ve been wondering what’s been happening with this energy blogger since the dog days of August last year, I’d like to share a story told by our electric bills. Maybe numbers aren’t your thing. Stay with me, though, and see where I’m going with all of this. It’s a simple story, really.
I decided to go back to those dog days of August… way back. Comparing our August 2007 bill with our August 2008 bill, here’s what I found: In August 2007, we used 3202 kilowatt hours of electricity during a 29-day billing cycle, averaging 110 kWh per day. In August 2008, we used 2719 kilowatt hours of electricity during a 30-day billing cycle, averaging 91 kWh per day. That’s a significant decrease in electricity usage – no fooling! – but perhaps it could be explained by variations in the weather those two summer seasons.
Now before I continue this story, you need to understand that a major event occurred in our household on September 5, 2008. After five years spent finishing our basement – much of the work we did ourselves – final inspection occurred. That added 2100 finished square feet to our household, including two bedrooms, a large rec room, a kitchen area, some other rooms, and two full bathrooms. We don’t use the basement as much as we use our upstairs living areas, but it is being used now, while it was not being used in prior years.
I thought it would be interesting to compare our pre-finished basement electric bills for two combined quarters in the 2007/2008 time frame with our post-finished basement electric bills for the equivalent two combined quarters in the 2008/2009 time frame. Here’s what I found: During the last quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008, we used 10,956 kilowatt hours of electricity, averaging 60 kWh per day. During the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, we used 9,330 kilowatt hours of electricity, averaging 51 kWh per day. That’s a 15% decrease in electricity usage that stood the test of time, regardless of the addition of an entire floor of living space – no fooling!
What have we been doing differently to conserve energy? Four teenagers probably would say, “not much.” But their kWh-zapping mom would say that it’s been simple things like making sure that lights are turned off when they’re not being used, running the dishwasher and dryer in the evening, setting the thermostat for the heat pump a few degrees lower, powering down the desktop computer at night, and replacing many of our incandescents with CFLs. The “not much” – simple behavioral changes for the most part – adds up. We also did hire someone to recaulk some upstairs windows.
If NOVEC services your home or offices and you’d like to learn more about your electric usage, give Bobby Cornwell a call at (703)392-1601. Of course, you also can review the 13-month bar chart provided on each of your bills. But if you want to obtain more specific information for comparison purposes, Bobby Cornwell will be glad to assist you.
Energy conservation alone cannot solve the complex challenges facing our electric grid, but it’s the easiest component of the bigger energy picture to address. In Virginia – where base rates have remained unchanged for many years and base rate caps just expired automatically at the end of last year – rate increases should be expected, despite the downturn in the economy. While all the debates continue about the best ways to make our grid smarter, finding ways to save energy (and money!) makes good energy sense now. No fooling!!!