A Month with No Power at Catch a Gideon

December 17th, 2006 by digerati

I previously wrote about beginning a month without power. Well, not without power, but trying to use as little as possible.

I successfully used less power than any month in the previous year! However, Pepco (the power company in DC) charges me for a minimum of 360 killowatt-hours regardless of use. I came in under this, but got charged just over $30 anyway. That’s less than usual for sure, but more than I was hoping for.

How did I do it?

The experiment started because my halogen light (read: portable sun) broke and it took a while to get working again. Also it was possible to turn off the HVAC entirely as it wasn’t warm enough for AC and wasn’t cold enough for heat. I managed to leave the unit off the entire month (it’s still off)!

I also had a number of other lights burn out about that time. So I was unintentionally using fewer lights, and then after replacing the bulbs decided I could probably do with less light most of the time anyway. I’m always good about turning them off when I leave, but I am more conscious of turning them off when they aren’t needed now.

So the net result was saving $20-40 a month on power. I think in the future I’ll be more conscious of saving electricity. I also don’t think it is worth trying to reduce power consumption as low as possible. It was a great experiment as far as getting in the habit of using fewer lights and turning things off when not in use (speakers, computers, etc). Now if only there was a way to reduce the power the fridge uses…