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Thursday, April 30, 2009

Still confused by this electricity thing.

So about a year ago, I went and made a table out of a year's worth of electricity bills and posted it here.

I'll save you the trouble of clicking on the link and quote the table. Here comes a quote:
"
So, here's a summary of my electricity bills for the last year, for reference, this is a 1 bedroom apartment on the ground floor:
DateKWH ReadKWH Usage# DaysAvg. Usage.Charges
05/08/200899813502.002917.3159.79
04/09/200899311368.003012.2744.11
03/10/200898943377.003211.7845.36
02/07/200898566287.00299.934.78
01/09/200898279364.003311.0344.21
12/07/200797915436.003114.0653.76
11/06/200797479606.003218.9486.53
10/05/200796873626.002921.5981.56
09/06/200796247618.003020.677.46
08/07/200795629602.002920.7676.11
07/09/200795027558.003217.4467.63
06/07/200794469468.003015.657.55
05/08/200794001401.003112.9447.98
TOTAL:-6213.0039715.64776.83
"

And then I moved. Used to live 15 miles from the sea, now 2. Square footage is a bit different as well, so there's variables.

Here's another year's worth of numbers:


DateKWH ReadKWH Usage# DaysAvg. Usage.Charges
04/24/20094691147.00304.9$ 19.01
03/25/20094544139.00294.79$ 17.94
02/24/20094405172.00325.38$ 22.71
01/23/20094233162.00315.23$ 21.46
12/23/20084071193.00326.03$ 25.43
11/21/20083878219.00297.55$ 28.38
10/23/20083659315.003110.16$40.40
09/22/20083344364.003211.38$ 47.25
08/21/20082980292.002910.07$ 37.03
07/23/20082688280.00309.33$ 34.91
06/23/20082408165.00325.16$ 20.83
05/22/20082243 8.0081$ 16.18
TOTAL:-24563457.11$330.53

So I'm paying about less than half of what I used to pay. Still can't make heads or tails of one of my cow-orkers complaining about hundreds (nearly thousands) of dollars worth of electric bills in the summer.

Other than the move, I can't say I'm aware of any usage changes. Still run my computers quite a bit. Still leave a light on when I stay up too late. Run the air conditioner when it seems right. Go figure.

5 comments:

stiill said...

We pay a lot more-- over $100 every month, I think.

Partly, I'm irresponsible. Even if I'm not home, my two switches and wireless router are on, my laptop's in sleep mode, my computer's in a broken energy-saving mode that cranks the fan way up, Ruth's computer is suspended but still sucking power, the terastation's on, and my media computer is suspended. If power saving settings break on one of the boxes, this can get worse.

Also, we work from home. Our bill is worse than average, but if you add in most peoples' at work consumption, it'd probably even out.

transiit said...

I have a mix of laptops, switches, terastation, and routers running (some in suspension or sleep) at all times as well. The lighting I use are CFLs, but I can't imagine they're that much of a power saver.

Maybe I'm a little better than most at turning off lights when I don't use 'em, but it seems like my power bill is always way lower than everyone else I know.

I keep expecting a letter from Edison saying "Yeah, we forgot to carry the one. You owe us $10,000"

boo said...

Holy crap! That is a huge difference. Good for you.

I am on budget plans here and until the gas crisis thing I always got money back in June from the gas company. For electric I always have them apply it to the next payment and usually get one month free and another half priced.

stiill said...

Weird.

I did a bit of Googling, and unsurprisingly, the first results were... Google's. :) They've got a little "power meter" program going with GE, but you can't actually get the power data going unless you have something called a "smart meter", which I'm pretty sure I don't.

Basically, if you can already track every device in your home, Google's willing to graph it for you. :) It would be pretty awesome to be able to track electricity usage by appliance, or even by socket or circuit. Hell, even by house, real-time, accessible via my home network, would be awesome.

Unknown said...

My guess is that it's not
the computers you've got running.

I guess the greatest difference
between the 2 residences is mainly
due to the AC unit (old ACs are
power hogs), lights (maybe you
have 15W fluorescents in the new
place and in the old place you had
60W incandescents), water heater
(electric in the old place,
gas in the new place), cook-top
(electric or gas). Mainly stuff
that comes with the apartment.
The fridge (if it comes with the
unit)

Overall, a big dent in the
electric bill.