Today’s mail included a notice from PGE/NW Natural that our household has been selected for an interesting program that I hope becomes a standard part of everyone’s utility bill. The program provides Personal Energy Reports and features both a year to year comparison of our electric and gas bills as well as a general comparison of our usage with the average used by comparable residences in the neighborhood. The information is presented in a user-friendly format that shows our use, the usage of our most efficient neighbors and the average of all neighbors. I was pleased to see that between this year and last we have been able to reduce our overall power usage by 4% because we have focused this year on that particular problem. In addition to making a conscious effort to conserve both gas and electricity we took advantage of last year's energy incentives and replaced all the windows upstairs, so it was gratifying to see the needle move a bit. But when I saw the comparisons between our usage and that of the neighbors…well, let’s just say we have a lot of work to do around this place. Ok, I’ll confess. According to this information in 2010 we used 16% more energy than our neighbors. And the main culprit was our gas bill. We are well above the average for gas consumption for all but the months of July and August, whereas we are well below it with our electrical use from May to October. Could be we need to look at our water heater as well as our furnace. Certainly we need to do someting about the insulation...
It is obvious I suspect that with me at least this program has squarely hit the mark. For one thing I’m mortified and you can bet I plan to get cracking on some energy saving steps that I have put off for the last couple years. But in addition to jangling my Responsibility Nerve the program’s information gives me a valuable benchmark against which I can both plan and compare our progress. Re-insulating the attic is the first big step, then the pipes under the house. These are the low hanging and relatively inexpensive fruit I already know about. And I think we have to look at maybe replacing the downstairs windows as well. My wife will be thrilled.
The program is a collaboration between the two energy companies and Energy Trust of Oregon. I commend them all for this insightful and positively oriented approach towards improving our collective energy use. I'm not sure how inclusive the program may be at this point but you can try logging on to www.energytrust.org/personalenergyreport. Too bad this service doesn't include water usage as well. I will be contacting West Slope Water tomorrow to see if anything like this is in the works on that front. Their monthly bill lets me compare my past usage, but it doesn't offer the usage insights that come from knowing what your neighbors are able to do.
