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nate379
Guest
What uses so much power in the summer? When I lived in Idaho the power cost $0.07 or $0.08 per kWh. House was all electric, the highest bill I ever had was a bit over $100. In the summer it was usually around $15-20.
Weird... I thought I was doing well in the summer...lol.
I am guessing the main culprit is the 60 gallon hot water heater. Then the clothes dryer, oven and then lights. And i have a dehumidifier running in the basement all summer (the compressor cycles on and off whereas the fans stay on). The only months where there is no heat on at al in the month is July and August.
And I assume that Gaspe Quebec is colder than Idaho...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspé,_Quebec
A
I thought, being all electric, your winter usage would be much higher. I'm guessing you are doing much of your heating load with wood. Depending on family size, your summer usage might be considered pretty normal. I'll bet, though, if you got anal with a kill-a-watt meter, you could cut it down by at least 25%. I was able to knock mine down by 30% a few years ago. One of the main culprits was the dehumidifier in the cellar. It was using a lot of electricity to do very little. I replaced it with one that worked. I also did some air sealing down there, which helps keep the humidity out.
I bet a GSHP (geothermal) would work well where you are. It could do most of your hot water as well. It might be hard to justify the cost where you are, considering the cheap electricity and firewood. Maybe though, over the long term, especially if you wanted, or needed to move away from wood, it might be worth looking at.
3 bedroom mid-terrace house with the two of us living in it, heating & hot water by mains gas (~10,000 kWh/year). LED lights everywhere, new highly efficient appliances, dishwasher plumbed in to hot water, that sort of thing.How the heck can your annual consumption be 2000 kWh?!?!
Oooo...you said the secret! Hot water and heating via gas. Now it makes sense. I didn't even think of it! lol3 bedroom mid-terrace house with the two of us living in it, heating & hot water by mains gas (~10,000 kWh/year). LED lights everywhere, new highly efficient appliances, dishwasher plumbed in to hot water, that sort of thing.
Hoping to fit Solar PV + Hot Water and wood stove this year, aiming for ~6,000 kWh/year of gas and ~1,200 kWh/year of electricity (we don't have net metering in the UK).
Good grief, I dont know why I did not realize that you would have to heat water, use dryer, etc with NG or LP. Otherwise the utility bill would be much higher. My bad!I just did some math and came up with a monthly average of 191 kWh for that last 12 months. A grand total of 2,292 kWh in that last year. Annual useage of 50 gallons of LP for dryer, and range, and 60 gal of oil for hot water in the summer, as all other water and 100% heat is provided with wood during the heating season. I have been thinking of selling my Toyotomi OM and going with an air source HP for some "free" air conditioning in the summer. We did run a window AC unit for a few hours a day last summer in the bedroom.
TS
Ha! That's what happens when your country builds Volvos Just kidding. How does Sweden generate most of their electricity?
ANdrew
We worked out a sweet deal for our 3K solar array. WA state & PSE pay $0.64/kw hr because the system is WA state made. Yesterday was sunny all day and the meter was tallying up a good run.
They pay 64 cents per kwh? That must be a mistake, since you can buy it for less than 10.
Yes, though the effect will vary by region depending on the mix of power generation. Hydro, nuclear, and the cleaner gas and coal-fired plants can provide for most base-load power demands, but during peak days of the year the old, dirtier coal plants are brought back into temporary service to handle the load.Though this is excellent for my wallet, I do wonder if it helps on carbon. Though obviously I'm helping a lot with the issue of having to add generation capacity, I guess the key question is: does the generation of peak-time electricity have substantially more environmental impact, be it carbon emissions or whatever ?
I know one way in which my plan definitely helps. It was told to me by my climate journalist friend who's normally a huge climate-change hawk, when he endorsed my plan to get an old-fashioned electric-resistance water heater (albeit far better insulated than your grandfather's) and save the $1000+ over a "fancy" new water heater and put it towards solar electric or something. He explained the idea is that the millions of electric water heaters actually act as giant distributed "battery" for storing electric energy. As long as one contrives, of course, to have the water heater not operate during peak hours; this happens for me quite naturally due to my schedule, as explained above, but can be implemented by most anyone using a water-heater timer.
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