Since I was a kid I've had a passing fascination with "free" (aka alternative) energy. I remember in grade school having a calculator with a little solar panel above the display that never needed new batteries. At the time, it was pretty novel.
So, several years ago I went downtown to Solar Plexus to start asking questions about options and the cost of a solar system. The first question the guy asked me was how much energy I was using per month. I didn't have a clue. He said the first thing to do was check and if it was above 400 kWh (Kilowatt Hours) per month, then my time and money would be better spent making some changes around the house to save energy before investing in a solar system.
When I got home I pulled out my last bill from the energy company. According to it I was averaging between 550 and 600 kWh/month. 400 kWh seemed like an impossible target. How on earth was I going to cut my electricity usage by 30%?
The electric bill shows your historical usage for the last 13 months, so you can always compare your current bill, with the same month for the previous year. This gave me an idea. I'd simply set a goal of using less electricity each month than I did on the same month one year earlier. Having a touch of a competitive streak, this was all that I needed.
First thing I did was drain the water bed and replace it with a mattress that fit the water bed frame. This wasn't cheap, but I estimated that the energy savings alone paid for the mattress inside the first year. I also replaced all the light fixtures in the house with CFLs. They were expensive up front, but the fact that they last so much longer (and thus need replacing much less often) than regular bulbs was alone worth it, regardless of energy savings.
These were big enough improvements that for the next year, I was pretty much guaranteed to beat the prior years monthly usage. Once 12 months had past though, it was time to figure something else out. So I replaced the clothes dryer and refrigerator with newer (they were both ancient) energy efficient models. That helped some, but not as much as I'd hoped.
Next step was to experiment with drying clothes on a clothes line instead of in the new dryer. Bullseye! That saved about as much energy as converting the water bed. And I swear, there are some summer days when the clothes dry faster outside than they would in the dryer. I've got a covered back deck with the clothes line crisscrossing it, so that even if it's raining, I can hang the clothes out for several days to wait for them to dry. When I need them dry faster, I'll bring them into the house a few at a time to hang in the bathroom or over a kitchen chair. When those are dry (usually several hours), I put them away and bring in some more. Bringing a few in before I go to work in the morning, and then a few more when I get home seems to be a good system, and it even works in the dead of winter. Sometimes though, I really do need something dried quick, in which case the clothes dryer is a wonderful luxury.
As time went on, it got more and more challenging to beat the prior years usage, and sometimes was just impossible. Having a family member who's not quite as goal oriented move in for several months has a tendency to completely screw up one's energy conservation goals, among other things. But even under ideal circumstances, each time I set a new record low, it was that much harder to get even lower that month the following year.
Nevertheless, by 2004, I was down to 300-350 kWh/month, well under the previously perceived impossible goal of 400. In 2005, I was seeing usage in the 250-300 kWh range, and on May, 2006, I used an impossibly low 199 kWh.
One tool that I've found invaluable here at the low end is the Kill-a-Watt
So, a few weeks ago, I started unplugging things completely from the wall when I'm not using them, just to see how much energy THAT would save. The first bill just arrived since that experiment started, and Holy Crap! I set yet another record low. 151KwH.
It's hard to believe that when I started this project several years ago, I was using more than 600 kWh some months. Certainly some of the things I do might be considered a little too aggressive for some people. Remembering to unplug the computer every time I turn it off is challenging at first, but even if I only do it sometimes, that's still saving more energy that not at all. Back when I set the record of 199, getting below 150 seemed impossible. Now that I've reached 151, I've got my sites set on double digits. Will I ever be trying to beat a prior record of only 20 kWh in a month? Probably not. But back when I was in the 500's... I never imagined that I'd get down to below 200 without killing the main breaker and living by candlelight. Yet, here I am, working on the computer, lights on, refrigerator humming along, and I'm fairly confident next month's bill will be solidly below 150kWh.
So, what about a solar system now? Well, my total electric bill for the month comes to a little over $20. A basic solar system will probably run at least $10,000 for a grid tied system (i.e. uses the existing power company grid to "store" the electricity rather than using batteries). And that would only save me the $7.91 of this months bill that was spent on "supply" charges. I'd still need to pay for most of the other fees like transmission and distribution since I would still be using those services. To avoid all those fees, I'd need to go off grid, which would require a bank of batteries, which would be even more expensive and require a lot more maintenance. Somehow that seems kinda silly to save $8/mo. The industry is making a lot of technological advances though, so maybe one day....
