december Power bill
“Efergy Elite” consumption monitor review
Friday, 27 January, 2012
Last week we got our December power bill from EPCOR: 1800 kWh or in simple terms a grand total of $380 dollars (including various fees and surcharges, an entirely different topic for discussion).
Needless to say I was angry. And I was finally committed to getting to the bottom of these outrageous bills; my next step would be full solar and wind conversion, if I could convince the neighbours. Anyhow, we moved into this brand new house in May, and since then it’s been a consistent energy hog averaging almost 1600kWh per month. We have the newest and most efficient Energy Star appliances. In the summer we replaced almost every incandescent bulb with LED and CFL versions. We turned off one of the furnaces altogether. We turned off the second hot water tank. We ate by candlelight. While the kids loved the ambiance my wife was not so enthused.
I was just about to pull the trigger on the “Kill-A-Watt” plug in meter when I saw an ad in the local paper for the EFERGY Elite meter (http://www.efergycanada.ca/) on sale for $109 at my neighbourhood hardware store. I had been running outside and recording the hourly meter readings on a spreadsheet, so this was just what I needed!
Installation was fairly easy - I was in great fear of electrocution as I had to remove an outer and inner panel from the fuse box and attach two sensors to a 200 amp connection. But once that was complete the setup was quite simple. Adjust the date and time, input the cost you are paying for electricity (about $0.15 for us at the moment) and you are ready to start cutting back the power.
Here are the sensors attached to both electrical lines coming into the house. If you are not comfortable working inside a box full of 200amp current, please go ahead and hire an electrician...
The real-time results. As you can see at this moment in time (happens to be night time here) we are using 0.661 kW of electricity, or 661 watts. The kids are fascinated to see how much we are using, and how much it costs.
As you can well imagine, I have spent the rest of the day walking around turning various electrical devices on and off to see the impact on power consumption. I have also been barking at the children to turn things off when they leave the room... (I sound like my dad, and he wasn’t paying $0.15 per kWh) There is a 10 second delay, but you can see exactly what is sucking the kW (and more importantly, your money) out of your household. The worst offenders are the furnace (we had it on continuous circulation), the inflatable kids “bouncy house” (holy smokes, almost 500 watts!), and certain sets of potlights in the living areas that we never converted to LED/CFL. Central vac is a hog as well; I may be sweeping more often!
Other surprises? The TV/XBox/Receiver had very little influence on the overall consumption. Same thing with the computer (iMac) and other small appliances around the house. With everything turned off at night the meter sits around 0.300 kW - I am assuming that’s the fridge and various ‘phantom’ power sources. I may start hunting those down.
One of the coolest features? The Efergy Elite maintains a record of your daily, weekly, and monthly consumption patterns. You can see how much you used, and how much it cost you. So far Saturday and Sunday are the worst days - everyone is home and the laundry gets done. With 3 girls you can imagine the amount of clothes...
My complaints with the unit - the LED screen is quite ‘cheap’. From time to time the screen becomes difficult to read even in proper light. Also, no wall adaptors are included (sold separately) and the batteries are not rechargeable (would be a nice touch with such a green device). As well, I wish there was a way to interface with my computer so I could track consumption by spreadsheet, etc. I discovered too late that Efergy carries another model (the E2 classic 2.0) that has this capability. Unfortunately my local retailer did not carry that model.
Despite those minor issues, I highly recommend this investment for any electrical customer who is angry with the high cost of power in Alberta. Don’t be angry with you power bill, do something about it. And this is just one step. You will find your habits changing literally overnight.
Stay tuned... I give regular updates as we build a better consumption history. The January bill might still be high, but I think we could potentially cut our usage by at least 25% for February.
Anyone out there up for a little challenge?
