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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Saving The Planet With Little Dents – Update

On August 9 I encouraged everyone to not only turn off but also to unplug appliances and electronic devices not in use at that moment to help save some money and the planet.

Since that time, some have asked for an update of what my personal results have been, so here goes:

2007 2008
MONTH KWH BILL KWH BILL COMMENT
July 250 $49.65 265 $61.41
August 303 $58.18 211 $50.21 Dent chg 9th
September 262 $51.18 110 $29.27 Fridge 26th

OK, the data above which so nicely fits in a table in Word, or even into tab-created columns, is a mishmosh; so here’s the detail in words. In August, I began turning off and unplugging anything I could that was using electricity when I wasn’t using it. Last year, usage went up for the month of August by 53 KWH (kilowatt hours) over usage in July. This year, it was almost the reverse. August went down by 54 KWH over July usage. The net difference from last year to this was a savings of 92 KWH.

I haven’t checked out the weather bureau to see if this August was a lot cooler than last August, but I don’t believe that would have made this much of a difference - I don’t use air conditioning in my home, and usually only use one window fan, at night, and it has a thermostat built in so doesn’t run all night long most nights.

On to September! I purchased a new Energy Star rated refrigerator on tax free weekend (8/18) which was delivered on 8/26. My old refrigerator, goddess bless it, had been a refurbished model that I know I had purchased prior to 1987. Although it will take many years to recoup the purchase price in energy $$ savings, I am happy to note that the carbon footprint of my home has been reduced by this amount. My usage was reduced by 152 KWH for the same month – yeah!!

Just one more thing: the local energy company I purchase electricity from is NSTAR. During the summer they offered the opportunity to sign up to have either part or all of your electricity generated using wind-power. I chose to go with 100% green generation. There is an additional cost for this (it’s about 3 cents per KWH), but hopefully as more customers choose this option that will turn around (pun intended!)

We can all make a dent – hope you’ve been inspired by reading about what I’ve done recently to make some changes yourself.

Peace to all, Judi

3 comments:

High Desert Diva said...

It's good to see this in black and white. I'm a big believer in phantom electricity, but I know I don't have everything unplugged that I could.

We also are in need of a new fridge. We've had ours since 1989 and it now freezes food if it gets pushed to close to the back. Oy.

Unknown said...

Wow rock on, that is fantastic that you are being charged a little more but are actually saving money anyway! Will have to get on NSTAR website & see if I could still swap over to use at least some green alternative. Very inspiring thanks!!!

Karen said...

Every little bit makes a difference, doesn't it? It's amazing... good job!