As the second week of the challenge passes by it is time to ‘fess up again! Hopefully everyone is still taking their meter readings and trying little things to lower their consumption.
Once again, add up each daily figure for Week 2 in the “Total kWh used in home” column and divide by 7. This will give you the daily average for the week. Lower than your initial baseline is good, and lower than your Week 1 average is fantastic.
Personal confession time. Our daily average for Week 2 is 16.8 kWh which is 1.1 kWh higher than last weeks average or 5% higher and just above my baseline. The shame! We had a spate of hot days over 32C so the air-conditioner was necessary which caused the increase. However for the last few days of the week we did really well in the low teens. Here is my data sheet (click to enlarge).
Here is my progress graph.
The trend is down which is a good thing, and we are striving to get a few days below 10 kWh in the next few days, but as the temperature is creeping up above 30C again later this week, we may not have the chance.
Kim also used the electric oven on the 29th, which is obviously a habit that is going to be hard to break. Still I enjoyed the bread and biscuits that she made, so I cannot complain too much. Kim’s mum flew out to Bangkok on Saturday so we have one less person in the home. Even though we will miss her, it might just make the difference of me passing this challenge!
Hopefully everyone is still enjoying or at least getting something out of the challenge. I certainly get a kick at 7 pm when I read my meter. It is nice to finally work out the entire dynamics of the grid vs solar PV and how much we are actually consuming in total. Even though we are not drawing much from the grid, I would still rather pump as much electricity back into the grid during the day as I can (sunny days obliging of course).
Anyway, I hope you are all doing better than I am, and I feel a little bit embarrassed that I am struggling with my own challenge. Who would have thought?
What a great idea. I have thought about doing a car use audit but haven’t started yet. Will soon though. I think all these things are great to raise your own awareness, and then to blog about them helps other people think about them too
I’m right back on my baseline of 3.8kWh per day. I might have to go around and double check we’ve unplugged devices like mobile phone chargers and the like – these things have a habit of getting plugged in and being left in!
Our week 2 average was very slightly higher than week 1 (7 instead of 6.9). We had a 4kWh day on Saturday when it was really really sunny and we generated 15kWh. Then Sunday was the exact opposite. It was really cold and we only generated 2kWh while we used 9. Lights and warm food…
Thank you for doing this. I have never tracked our electric use daily (only monthly) so this helps determine exactly the things we do that use more energy. Lesson learned so far: most of our variable energy use is lighting.
No worries, Gavin, with me in your corner…
2nd week average: 33.4
1st week average: 29.8
baseline: 34.0
In the spirit of true confessions, I will also admit that we got as high as 41.2 – this won’t help Kim’s case any, as the reason is undoubtedly because I ran the electric oven for 6.5 hours – that was 40 dozen cookies and mince tarts, in my defence! I should also say that the reason our numbers are 20 higher than everyone elses are is because we have two attic bedrooms heated with baseboard electric heaters – it’s winter here, so I don’t have a choice – they are set for 18 degrees. Also, we are very lucky here in BC that our grid electricity is 100% hydro power, so while I would like to reduce our energy useage, I am glad to know that what we do use is “clean”.
Well you inspired me to finally turn off the dog bone freezer, now that we have room in other freezers AND turn off the cheese fridge (now that we don’t have excess milk for a few months!). I haven’t read the meter yet, but I’m hoping that has made a difference. At the same time we’re also running our egg incubator and food dehydrator, so I may not have got very far! however, we did install 4 ceiling fans this year so we don’t use the air con unless it is over 30degC in the house. I want to know how Michael has achieved 3.8!!!
Our average use this week is 8.25 compared to last weeks 11. We haven’t needed to use air conditioning this week as it has been cool and is now raining so our PV production is going down 9.14 over the week.
This weeks average is 8.1 which is better than the previous weeks. We did have a 12 day due to the oven and doing the wash I think. Hoping to get under the magic 8 this week!
Down 0.4, so nothing to get too excited about. In Sydney we did have a few rainy days, so that impacted the solar power generated. I am also interested how Michael achieved his low usage…