Electricity Bill Exercises

So I found myself staring at the electricity bill that came yesterday, and I couldn't help but do a little math (I don't know what's come over me recently- math is NOT my thing). We used 25% less energy last month (mid Sept. thru mid Oct.). Compared to the same period last year, we used 15% less energy this year (for that billing cycle).

So after being encouraged by this, I dug out my records & pieced together what data I had for the past 3 years. I put in a spreadsheet & made a graph. I color coded the graph by season:

blue = winter
green = spring
yellow = summer (the yellow didn't really show up well. tough.)
orange = fall

I'm sure you could have figured that out. I think a 5 year old might have gotten that.

That first & biggest peak is when I discovered the electric heater in the sunroom (and the sunlight in the sunroom). And probably also when I decided that I couldn't take the darkness of winter any longer & consequently turned on every light in the house (cut me a little slack - we just moved up from Texas). I'm rather embarrassed by that peak. The sad part? We were out of town for 3 weeks - at least part of which is covered in that billing cycle. Let's just leave it as: I'm not proud of that.

The good news is that since the first few months of data, we've never crossed that starting threshold (800 KWH? how awful). You can almost see the progression as we gradually switched the light bulbs to CFLs. No mean feat - someone had replaced every single one of our light switches with dimmable switches. Dimmable CFLS are really pricey, and who needs mood lighting in the bathrooms? So we had to replace the switches as we replaced the bulbs.

Interestingly, you can't really tell when we got the window AC unit - we didn't turn it on much. You can see the spikes in the summer when we use the fans though. And around February when I can't stand being cold & dark anymore. If only I could get over that hump.

THIS is what I did with my Friday afternoon off. I came home from work & ended up doing this... (actually, I got really frustrated that I had forgotten how to use excel, and couldn't possibly quit).

I am a little disturbed by the overall general upward trend over the past 2 years, though. But once again, I'm pretty happy with last month's performance, so I wont beat myself up too badly.


After going through this exercise, it occurs to me that maybe nobody else even LOOKS at their electricity bill (much less makes a spreadsheet & graph). But what if we were all a little more nosey? What if we had to own up to our electricity usage to our nosey (but well meaning) friends? What if we could have a contest each month of who uses the least? What if among a group of friends, we could compare electricity bills, and the person with the highest bill has to buy a drink for every other person in the group? We could normalize the bills - break it down to KWH/resident average... our household energy usage this month would be 187 KWH/person. There would have to be a handicap for folks with electric stoves & electric heat, but I think over time we could figure that out.

I guess it's a similar idea to my arms race for alternative energy. Americans like competition - maybe we can use that to our advantage.