Electricity cost breakdown in average USA home

   In the "average" USA home, electricity cost breaks down with no items
exceeding 16%.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/electricity/electricity.html

  This means that if you have this "average home", then you cannot achieve
a really big reduction in electricity cost unless you reduce consumption
of more than one item or class of items.

  Many people have homes with lack of electricity consumption of at least
one of the shown categories.  For example, many people do not have
separate freezers.  Some live in apartments without any heating costs
billed to the tenant's electric meter.  Some live where air conditioning
is not much of a need, or otherwise do without air conditioning.  Many
have gas water heaters.  Many do not use electric home heating, whether
homewide or for smaller space heaters.

  This means that some homes have a standout item or item class or two
that may be an easy target for major electrid bill decreases even if the
"USA average home" does not.

  Homes with more devices powered by electricity (such as heating of the
entire home and hot water heating) are located disproportionately where
electricity costs are higher.  So homes in areas with average or
above-average electricity costs are more likely to have little or no
electricity cost for home/space heating or water heating, and other items
(such as refrigerators, lighting and TVs) become bigger slices of the pie.

  If you have an old refrigerator and residential electricity rate near or
above the national average, it probably pays to have an itchy trigger
finger to replace it.
  Also, allow heat to easily escape from your fridge.  If it has exposed
coils, give it a few inches of "breathing room".  If the heat is kicked
out from any particular side, give that side plenty of breathing room, as
well as breathing room for cool air from the house to come in and replace
the kicked-out heated air.  Consider where warmed air will go and where
cool air will come in to replace it when shopping for a new fridge to
minimize heat from the fridge's condenser from warming the fridge.

  If you have an old air conditioner, then replacing it can easily be a
good investment.

  Many homes have a lot more than 8.8% of their electricity cost being
used for lighting - and more still will when other doable things are done
to decrease electricity consumption.  Use compact fluorescents instead of
incandescents where CFLs are workable.  (They are not workable everywhere.)
  Where CFLs are not workable, see if the latest improved-efficiency HIR
halogen incandescents are good.  Philips has a 70 watt one that replaces a
100 watt conventional lightbulb and a 40 watt one that replaces a 60 watt
conventional lightbulb.  (Availabe at Home Depot - "Halogena Energy
Saver".)  Although the savings are much less than with CFLs, it usually
pays to replace ordinary incandescents with these where residential
electricity cost is close to or above USA's national average.

  If you don't pay for electric heat but use air conditioning that you pay
for, there is some compounding of electricity cost for refrigerators,
lighting, TV, etc. because electric devices produce heat that your air
conditioning must pump out.  Only if you don't need air conditioning and
also have resistive electric whole-house heating do inefficiencies in your
lighting and appliances not increase your climate control bill.

  Most TVs, video recorders, computers, computer accessories, and
everything with a clock display or "ready light" that is on when the
device is "off" consumes power when it is "off".  Often only about 1-2
watts, but my TV consumes 12 watts when "off" and my computer consumes a
few watts when "off".
  All too often in areas with average or above-average residential
electricity rates, it pays to add a power strip to make it convenient to
turn such devices "actually off" except for ones that need reprogramming
when re-powered, also excepting printers that automatically execute a
cleaning procedure upon power restoration.  Power strips that have a light
generally consume about 1/4-1/2 watt.

  If you have any incandescent nightlights, consider replacing them with
LED models.  Incandescent nightlights mostly consume 2.5-7 watts, with
replacement bulbs usually being rated 4-7 watts (A few incandescent
nightlights have diodes that reduce power consumption by about 40-42%).
  LED nightlights mostly consume .3-.5 watt.  They are generally dimmer
than incandescent ones, but incandescent ones often need shades and the
LED ones mostly produce a spectrum more favorable to night vision than
incandescents do.
  I prefer green and blue LED nightlights over white ones because white
ones often fade over several months to a few years, and the few remaining
options (yellow and red) tend to be dim, especially to night vision.
  Although this usually only nibbles at electric bills a little, this is
worthwhile to do where residential electricity cost is near or above the
USA national average.  Replacing an incandescent nightlight with an LED
one can easily save a couple bucks a year, and *often* $7/year in NYC,
Chicago and Philadelphia.  Doing without is even better when that is not
much sacrifice.
  Electroluminescent nightlights ("Indiglo" and "Limelight" and the like)
consume even less power than most LED ones, but in my experience they
usually only last a few years and are often hardly an improvement over no
nightlight at all where lack of a nightlight is tolerable.

=================================================================

  Unplug your cellphone charger when you notice the phone's battery being
fully charged.
  Keeping the charger plugged in 24/7/365 may only waste 3-4 KWH per year
worth 30-50 cents per year, but I pick up quarters that I notice on the
street and I favor postponing need to build more power plants as our
population grows.
  Along these lines, I favor energy efficiency standards for all those
"wall warts" - many would consume a watt or two less if it was tolerable
to increase their manufacturing cost enough to increase their retail cost
about $1-$2.  (Most modern slim cellphone chargers I find to be the
exception for already having good energy efficiency.)

  When you reduce electricity consumption in ways applicable 24/365, that
disproportionately reduces need for electricity from coal-fired power
plants.  Burning of coal is so pulluting that replacing incandescent lamps
with CFLs normally reduces transfer of mercury from ore to elsewhere in
the environment even though CFLs have mercury.

  When you reduce electricity consumption at times when demand is greatest
(usually afternoon and early evening during air conditioning season), the
fuel usage reduction shifts at least somewhat to oil and natural gas -
items that we sorely need to reduce our consumption of!

 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

 

I think its silly to talk about an average home, because there is a
very big difference between a house that uses JUST electricity
and one that uses other sources of heat particularly as well.


Thats just plain wrong if electricity is used for heating.


Wrong with a house that uses just electricity.


So its silly to lump all those together.


So the average house is completely irrelevant and it is in fact
just those houses that arent average in the sense that they use
electricity for everything, that can benefit most from a redesign.


Too obvious to be worth mentioning.


Ditto in spades.


of the pie.

Duh.


Mindlessly superficial. The only thing that makes any sense
is to calculate whether it makes sense to change it, not to
attempt some mindlessly superficial pontification like this.


Unlikely to be a significant use of electricity in
a house which uses electricity alone for heating.


Even less likely to be a significant user of electricity.


investment.

Depends on how much it is used.


That percentage is irrelevant, what matters is the percentage of the
total energy cost and there arent that many houses where thats true.


It isnt electricity consumption that matters, its total energy costs.


Or dont bother if the use of non CFLs isnt significant.


Or dont bother if those lights arent used much time wise.


And if those lights arent used much, its a complete waste of time replacing
those.


Not of those particular lights arent used much time wise.


Only if they are used much when the airconditioning is used much.


Againm what matters is the total ENERGY cost, not just the cost of the
electricity.


In which case its not worth worrying about.


Again, that last isnt going to matter much when compared with the other energy
costs.


It hardly ever pays in the sense of the hassle being worth it.


Completely irrelevant to house energy consumption.


models.

Or focus on much more important consumers of energy first.


More obsessing about trivia.


charged.

Or get a clue and use a switch mode charger and leave it plugged in all the time.


And much less than that with a switch mode charger.


Your problem.


And phone chargers are a trivial part of the national electricity
consumption which is completely dominated by air conditioners
as far as the peak demand which is what determins the need
for new power plants is concerned.


And anyone with a clue can work out which is the efficient ones
from the lack of a transformer in them thats obvious from the weight.


And any country that cares about pollution from burning coal uses nukes instead.


And if nukes are used, you dont need to consume any of that for electricity
generation.

 Why split hairs on this? Yea, every home has something in it a little or
lot different. Now with most belts being tightened, people are waking
up, and getting a good dose of reality.


So with that old incadescent bulb in the attic that is rarely used can
wait to be replaced when burns out. Or maybe----oh crap honey, I left
that 100 watt incadescent light on since sometime back in the spring.


Tommy

 
  If you have any lights that are prone to being left on once a room is
unoccupied, and there is little hope of getting the offenders to change,
there are those windup light timers that some apartment building laundry
rooms have.
  Back when suntanning lamps used to be more available, many of those also
had such timers.  I would think that electrical supply shops of the kind
that contractors go to have them.

 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

 Don Klipstein wrote:

Or use occupancy sensor switches. No one has to fumble to find and
figure out how to operate a timer switch and it will keep the lights on
as long at it "sees" someone.