New system

Re: New system

It is possible that they are not reading your meter every month but estimating usage sometime...

Can you read your meter at 8pm and 8pm the next night (or other time period that makes sense to you)?

And, while 9 kWH is a fair amount of energy, when you divide it out:

• 9,000 WH * 1/24 hours per day = 375 Watt load average load 24x7

That could be a couple refrigerators, a ventilation fan left on, and even an entertainment system "on standby".

I have a, now old, AM/FM/CD player that would draw >20 watts when "turned off". If you have Cable boxes, Digital Receivers, Sat Receiver, Digital TV Recorder, etc... Each of those can take 20-25 watts a piece when turned "off". Many of us when we have reduced our major loads (newer fridge/freezers, insulation, LED/CFL lighting, laptop vs desktop computers, etc..), we start looking at putting home entertainment systems (and even our washer+dryer which take 9 watts when "off").

You can see that it does not take many of today's modern devices to start running up the 24x7 loads.

Frequently, it is the 24x7 loads that drive up kWH per hour usage vs some of the bigger items:

• 2 Watt cell phone charger * 24 hours per day = 48 WH = 0.05 kWH per day
• 40 Watt Laptop * 10 hours per day = 400 WH = 0.4 kWH per day
• 25 Watt DVR * 24 hours per day = 600 WH = 0.6 kWH per day
• 150 Watt Desktop + network + printer * 24 hours per day = 3,600 WH = 3.6 kWH per day
• 1,500 Watt Microwave * 1/3rd hour per day = 500 WH = 0.5 kWH per day

So--Don't get on the family's use of Cell phone and MP3 player/chargers just yet... But you are going to need to go out to your meter (if mechanical) and turn off all of your home appliances/loads and look for the spinning disk... If it is still spinning, then you want to turn off each branch circuit and figure out which ones still have phantom loads.

There are newer devices that can save significant amounts of electricity... GE Geosprings (type) heat pump water heater (1/2 or less energy needs--In cold climates, maybe not good below 55F and have "waste" as cold/dry air). There are now induction electric ranges and cook tops (links are just examples, you will have to find items local to you).

Kill-a-Watt meter, Whole House Monitor, Current Clamp Meter, etc. are all going to be your friends here.

In the end, you probably currently have pretty low power rates (total rates of $0.10 CND or less)... It makes conservation (and solar) less competitive at this time.

And if your utility starts doing the latest craze--Very high monthly fixed fees ($40-$100 per month) and low per kWH rates ($0.06 per kWH)--It makes conservation even less interesting. But high fixed fees and low power usage does start make going completely off grid more of a possibility (for low usage homes ~100-300 kWH per month or less, and seasonal homes).

-Bill