The government-owned electricity monopoly here in British Columbia last year converted (almost) all electrical meters to "smart" meters that use WiFi to communicate consumption data to head office. (About 20,000 home owners refused the new meters on health grounds, and so they pay an extra $35 a month for man-powered meter reading.)
This means we can view our daily electrical consumption in a Web browser. Here is the chart for our house over the last 30 days. Ours is in light-blue; the average of surrounding houses is dark blue:
A few notes about these numbers:
- Our consumption ranges from 12 to 38KWhr/day.
- The lowest consumption I ever recorded was 6KWhr/day when we were out of the house for a few weeks in May. I turned off everything electrical in our house, except the fridge, freezer, and my computer. So, 6 is the lowest our numbers can go.
- Our house uses natural gas for heating, hot water, and the fireplace. This energy consumption is not included.
- The surrounding houses are similar to ours in age (or newer), with mostly similar families (empty nesters).
- The weekly peaks match the days on which the laundry is done. The weekly dips (often Sundays) match the days we are least in the house. The highest peak around Dec 6 occurred when overnight temperatures dropped to -10C.
So this chart makes us looks pretty good, and shows the benefits of the energy reduction measures I've taken over the two decades we've lived in this house.
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