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2010 Power Analysis

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Dollar sign in lightbulbWith 2010 ending yesterday, I now have a full year 1/1/2010 to 12/31/2010 of power and temperature data to look at and figure out when I use the most, and least power.

I last evaluated my long term power usage in April when I had 1 year of data. Those results were good, but they weren’t a real calendar year.

I’ll go ahead and do the same number analysis as I did then, then branch a bit since I have some more data I didn’t really look at then.

  • Total Energy used in 2010: 10,292.23KWH ($476.53)
  • Average Energy use per month: 857.69KWH ($39.71)
  • Highest energy use day (amount): 2010-12-27 (61.19KWH)
  • Highest energy use month (amount): December 2010 (1161.34KWH)
  • Lowest energy use day (amount): 2010-08-06 (9.71kWH)
  • Lowest energy use month (amount): September 2010 (570.83KWH)
  • Mean (average) energy use per day: 28.2KWH (~ $1.31/day)
  • Median energy use per day: 22.27KWH
  • Mode (most common) energy use per day: 23KWH (had to round this)
  • Highest energy use at a given time: 18.85kW (registered on 2010-11-21)
  • Lowest Voltage Recorded: 115.5v (registered 2010-11-24)
  • Highest Voltage Recorded: 125.9v (registered 2010-10-02)
  • Average Voltage: 121.3v
  • Number of rows in DB: 523,344

Now, one thing that came up was looking back at the April numbers, the median was WAY off. I recalculated and it’s much more reasonable now.

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My energy use

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Because this is an ongoing “post” that I will be re-visiting from time to time, I’m going to make a page that will be visible on the top navigation that will serve as a space for this “meta-topic”.

The main goal of this is to hopefully provide an overview of how from the time I really became aware of my energy use (with regards to electricity, gasoline, natural gas, etc), I have been trying to lower that total usage anytime I see easily trim-able amounts.

Now, please, don’t misunderstand. I am NOT saying I’m going to lower my footprint to zero (at least, not anytime soon), and I’m not saying I’m going to give up comforts for the sake of energy use. What I am saying is that with very little extra work, the average person could probably cut a non-trivial amount of energy use from their day to day life, and afterword be no less comfortable in their home (in some cases, more comfortable). What this does take is some time, and in many cases, money. But, in my mind, this money isn’t wasted. It will pay for itself in comforts, or just in long term savings.

The page will be up and running in the next few weeks. At this point, consider what you have around your home that could be replaced/upgrade that would save your money throughout the year, and would have little to no negative impact on your comfort.

Energy (electricity vs. gas)

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It’s been a while since I posted much of an energy post (other than my TED anniversary post on the 1st of April (here)). So, here we go.

First, for those that don’t know, a heat pump is just what it sounds like. It “pumps” or takes heat from inside (cooling) or outside (heating) and moves it to the other side. Basically, it’s an air conditioner that can “reverse”. See wiki page. When people just say “heat pump” they generally mean an air source heat pump (outside air is the source, or sink/dump for the heat). There are also “ground loop” heat pumps that use the ground as the source or sink/dump. Ground loop heat pumps are more efficient than air source ones, but they are much more expensive, and require more room to install (there are lines that run in the ground, either horizontally or vertically, which takes space/money to install). In my case, I have an air source heat pump.

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