A Personal Energy Plan

Energy Usage – Constructing a Personal Energy Plan

The new administration has placed energy-issues front and center on the national stage.  The economy has placed reducing expenses front and center in our private lives.  Taking control of our personal energy use and employing energy efficiency measures whenever and wherever possible is the “sweet spot” that meets both objectives.

Just like constructing a budget begins with knowing where your dollars are spent, constructing a home energy plan begins with knowing how much energy you use.

• Start by gathering 12 months of usage history.
• Get this information from your past bills, from Idaho Power’s website, or by calling customer service at 388-2323.
• Concentrate on the amount of energy used rather than the dollar amount billed. The unit of measurement for electricity is kilowatt-hours or kWh.
• Idaho Power’s “average” home-owner uses about 1050 kWh/month –  includes all residential customers including those with gas, etc.

The key to building an effective individual energy plan is to understand your own usage patterns.

• First, determine your monthly base load (average kWh used during the lowest 3 months of the year).  This is the average amount your family uses every month year-round to accomplish its basic daily tasks.
• Divide the monthly amount by 30 to get your daily base-load.
• As a rule of thumb, you can generalize that everything above the base load is due to heating and cooling or some other seasonal item (pool, hot tub, etc)

With this basic information in-hand, you can now begin to experiment with your behavior patterns and figure out how your actions and the equipment you own or operate affects your power bill.

Being aware of your base load and your typical daily and monthly averages also helps you identify potential problems quickly.

• Did you have more people in your home than normal?
• Does something need to be repaired?
• Have you added new electronic gadgets?
• Does the weather account for the difference, etc?

If you find that waiting until you get your next bill to receive feedback on your efforts gets frustrating, you can fix this by learning to your read meter.   It’s easy to do and will provide a much tighter feedback loop for measuring the impact of your adjustments.  You can find easy-to-follow instructions at idahopower.com.

Take charge of your energy use today by getting to know your own behavior patterns and enacting a plan to reduce your monthly bill and your overall energy use. Every little bit helps.  You have the power to make a difference?  You can do it!