ยป Electricity Usage
In the last 60 days I’ve used 2600 kW.h. Is that normal, around 1300 or so per month? I thought I was being pretty frugal with the juice, but I bumped up into a new billing teir (and was probably reported to the RCMP).
The national average household uses under 1000/month. You might be leaking power somewhere?
It’s insane that we’re expected to reduce our power usage when our feedback loop is on a 2-month delay, aggregated over a month for the whole house. Show me a system that can actually regulate with so little information.
Jared
25 Feb 09 at 4:00 pm
I’m pretty sure I have a huge power leak somewhere, but unfortunately I can’t find it. My average usage for the past two months has been 32kwh/day. That can’t be normal for a small 2 bedroom apartment, right?
Kyla
25 Feb 09 at 4:17 pm
30 kwh/day is a figure I saw for the typical American. I’m over 40 kwh/d.
I’m guessing my “leak” is the desktop I (used to) have powered up all the time.
Also: Anything with a fan. I used to smoke in my bathroom and leave the fans on to suck it all away.
Appliances also draw power when they’re plugged in but “turned off”. I’m thinking of getting one of those power bars to cut the juice 100% on that stuff.
But Z is the real expert. I’ll ask him to comment.
Jack
25 Feb 09 at 4:37 pm
Oh, and I have electric heat. I was having an argument with someone about whether you saved energy turning off the heat when you leave for the day (the counter-point being that you need more energy to heat the house up when you get home then). I don’t remember how it ended…
I’m guessing that because temperatures can’t actually fall very far (at least on the West Coast) you’d save energy turning off the heat during the day.
The answer is probably different in Nova Scotia, where I was having the argument, because there it’s possible to lose huge amounts of heat.
Jack
25 Feb 09 at 4:43 pm
Ideally a programmable thermostat wouldn’t just turn the heat on at a particular time but would accept commands like “ensure the house is this temperature at a particular time”. Then it would learn over time how early it needed to turn the heat on to achieve that. And that would automatically determine whether it’s better to leave the heat on or not.
Anyway remember your thermodynamics: running a heater twice as hot for half as long takes the same amount of power.
Jared
25 Feb 09 at 5:27 pm
Yeah, I was trying to stay higher level but thermodynamics was what I was thinking about…
Basically I was banking that lots of little activations was cheaper than one big one (because it’d have more ground to make up against the cold — less of a “heat base” — but I think you have to take into account insulation, etc, and there’s a good chance I’m just plain wrong.
In any case: You’re right, our thermostats need to be smarter. There’s a whole section of The Design of Everyday Things about them. IIRC the verdict: They’re awful.
Jack
25 Feb 09 at 5:33 pm
1300kW·h/month? I used 818kW·h over the more than two months from November 16th to January 22nd – for a house. I probably used more in the second month than the first though – I’d estimate 600kW·h for December 22nd to January 22nd.
Of course, I don’t have electric heat. That makes a straight comparison almost useless.
There is great unit for power·time/time. 1300kW·h/month = 1.8kW. This is a surprisingly nice sized number to work with. “You’re drawing an average of 1.8kW? I’m only pulling 1.1kW.”
Don
25 Feb 09 at 10:12 pm
“Ever since I started the studio I’ve been pulling 3kW. I gotta slow down.” — I like it!
Jack
26 Feb 09 at 12:44 am
Well Alex, you are using more power because you are home all the time. You used to go to work and turn some of the lights off and the TV off, now your not working and thus these things are being used more.
Turning the heat down when you are not home WILL save power. Think of the thermodynamics. Heat loss is determined by the temperature difference. (Inside temp – outside temp) * Insulation coefficient * time = Heat loss. This isn’t a real formula, but makes my point. Also note that the inside temperature will change. So if you turn the heat down, you have less heat loss. This applies in two ways to save on your electric bill. You can turn the temperature down or off when you are not home. You can also turn the temperature down when you are at home. This is independent of location.
There are smarter thermostats than the simple on/off ones found in most apartments. But there are not as cheep as the on/off style and our building are build a cheaply as possible.
Dr. Z
26 Feb 09 at 7:32 am
Dr Z has a good point: North America’s power usage is much higher during the day than the evening, because people use more power when they’re working. If you’re running a home office, one of the costs you’ve got to deal with is a higher home electricity bill.
Jared
26 Feb 09 at 9:04 am
[...] learn him for using too much electricity, amirite? #Drugs, [...]
Gaming High | MentalPolyphonics
6 Mar 09 at 10:30 pm
Well, we used 2046 kWh in the last 60 days, so I guess you’re normal. :-/
It occurs to me: BC Hydro’s graduated licensing is a regressive tax because lower-income people are more likely to have electric heating.
Jared
22 Mar 09 at 10:58 pm
I’d say that, all things being equal, higher-income people would spend more on energy (heated floor tiles, heated driveways, etc).
I dunno though, that might be balanced with higher-income people moving to more energy-efficient (or cost-effective) products…
Jack
23 Mar 09 at 12:30 am