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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Electric usage on the rise?

This is on the back of my electric bill each month. I thought it was worth posting as it shows the point in 2008 when I decided to actively cut my usage. I had already moved to CFL light bulbs so this decrease is entirely due to putting things like tv and computers onto power strips and shutting off the vampire loads. I also unplug the microwave to avoid powering the clock...that would be the clock that was never set anyway! From that month on my bill dropped between $40-50 from what it had been.

The peak months are when the weather is at it's extremes; generally August and December or January. I expect this fall my averages will drop again when my son goes to university. I continue to get 400 kwh from wind power. It's my goal to eventually get my usage down that far.

The power company sent pamphlet out explaining the latest proposed rate increases and showed a chart graphing the rise in residential usage over the years. In 2009 it hit 13,000 kwh per residence! Imagine if all those customers initiated the simple cut-backs I did? My yearly usage is running around 8,750 kwh.

What can be better than saving money and the environment?

2 comments:

allotments4you.com said...

this is a really good thing to have on the back of your power bill...we don't have anything like this and maybe if we did then people would start to think a little more!!

Thomas Greenwalt said...

I haven't gotten a paper bill in years so no real idea what my power consumption is.