David
I took a class at PG&E’s Energy Performance Laboratory about a month ago and they had a short presentation on smart meters for homes.
A smart meter for residential use shows you your energy usage on your energy bill for each day; a commercial version shows energy usage by hour. Since residential smart meters show you your energy usage by day you can see when it spikes. If your uncle comes in for a weekend, and you know that he takes 20 minute showers and leaves his TV on all night long, you can now show him what kind of an impact he has on your energy usage. When there is a spike in the usage for a certain day, you can see it and anticipate it for the next time. Maybe you have a huge spike on Sunday because football is on all day, but maybe you realize you only watch about half of the time. Knowing where the spikes in usage are will help to show you how you can save.
What all smart meters do is show the energy usage at that exact moment. You can use this to see what each device uses. All you need is 2 people, and 2 cell phones or walkie-talkies and you can measure the energy usage of any appliance in your home. Have one person outside in front of the smart meter, have the other person inside so that they can turn on and off all of the appliances.
- Turn everything off, don’t disconnect things, just turn off everything that would be off if you left for work for that day. Now have the person outside record the energy usage. This is your vampire load. (A vampire load is the amount of energy your home uses to power all of your appliances while they are off, or to show the time or save memory) You can decrease your vampire load by buying devices that turn off appliances when you are away, or by connecting your appliances to outlets that are connected to switches, allowing you to turn off their power.
- Turn on you’re air conditioning or heater, whichever one has a higher usage depending on region. Have the person record the energy usage. The amount above your vampire load is your HVAC energy usage. This is very important to know. Running your HVAC system half as much or twice as much as you normally do can have huge impacts on your energy bills. Once you finish these tests you need to think about how comfortable you need to be in your home, or really how much comfort you can afford. If you are paying too much for HVAC, then you need to wear a sweater more, or open up the windows more often.
- Once your HVAC system is off again, do the same thing for each large appliance, dishwasher, washer, dryer, large televisions. Each test will show the energy load of each appliance. This will show you which one uses the most. Let’s say that you have a huge TV in your living room, and it constantly gets left on with no one watching it. Now you will know that it takes tons of energy to run it and you will tell everyone to turn it off. You might find out that your dishwasher uses hardly any energy compared to most other appliances, allowing you to run it when you want, instead of when it is completely full. The best part is that you can make your own conclusions from what you find.
There is also a device called a Kill-A-Watt that you can buy for about $30 that you can plug into an outlet. It will record the energy usage of whatever is plugged into it (Watts, Volts, Amps, and Total Energy Used). You can buy one and switch it from appliance to appliance, or you can buy multiple and check the energy usage over a few weeks or months on a couple of appliances. Knowing which electronic devices use up the most energy is very helpful in finding out ways to reduce your energy usage.
This isn’t life changing information, your not going to start taking 2 minute showers instead of 8 minute showers, or keep your house at 60 degrees instead of 68 degrees. But it will allow you to be more informed about where your energy usage is going and how much each part matters to the whole. It will allow you to know that turning off your TV for the 10 minutes you are gone does matter, that keeping your house at 64 degrees instead of 68 degrees when you are gone does make a difference.
Knowing where your money is going in your energy bill is very useful. Once you know how much you can impact something is when you try to make more of an impact than you have already made. Knowing that keeping your TV on all day when you are gone will cost you $5 will make you turn it off when you leave, instead of just thinking that you are wasting some energy and not knowing how much.
Past Blogs:
https://www.ecoperformancebuilders.com/eco-news/cost-effective-ways-of-saving-energy/
https://www.ecoperformancebuilders.com/eco-news/net-zero-energy-buildings/
Coming Blogs:
What is better Hydronics vs. Furnace
HVAC repairs vs. HVAC replacement
Should I install fiberglass Batts or Blown-in Cellulose insulation?
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