Let me start by making sure we’re clear on one point: electricity doesn’t factor into our home energy audits. The reason for that is that electricity use in homes is much more straightforward to deal with (in areas that use don’t use electric heat) than the whole-building issues Green Dream Group focuses on. Also, in this climate, the savings you can expect to see from switching out light bulbs, or even switching to more efficient appliances, aren’t generally as impressive as the ones you could realize from air sealing and insulating your home. So this post has little to do with energy audits, but my hope is that it’ll be a helpful resource for people interested in saving as much energy (and money) as possible, rather than focusing only on the big projects.
Home Energy Use by Cost
To begin with, let’s take a look at how energy use in the average home breaks down by cost. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) numbers show space heating (and cooling) together making up around 43% of your energy bill, with water heating as another 12%. Appliances and lighting use around 37% of your energy bill. The remaining 8% varies from home to home. Bear in mind that if your average yearly costs are very different from these averages, you’ll be able to save more on whatever portion of your bill is larger. More information is available at: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/consumer/tips/home_energy.html
So what are the best ways to save on electricity use in your home? There are a couple of ways to answer that. The most straightforward answer is to minimize 
your use of anything that requires electricity - refrigerators, computers, A/C, lighting, plug-in hybrid cars, you name it. That could mean getting rid of a second refrigerator, making sure to always turn appliances off - or better, unplug them - or turning off lights when you’re not in a room. You could go all out with this strategy; for example, I’d like to stop using the refrigerator entirely. A couple years ago, I lived for 6 months without a fridge - drinking soy milk instead of cow’s milk, making no more than weekly trips to the grocery store, eating almost no meat - and it was surprisingly easy to pull off. But I haven’t convinced my current roommates that it would be worth it yet… which may have something to do with our shared love of ice cream.
There are also a variety of ways to reduce your energy use without g
oing all-out down the conservation road. These tend to get the most press, because they allow you to maintain the same lifestyle and still reduce your energy usage. Two of the most popular of these solutions are switching to compact fluorescents (CFLs) and using power strips to turn off appliances when they’re not in use. CFLs use 1/5 as much energy as incandescent bulbs to produce the same amount of light (measured in lumens), so if you 
used CFLs exclusively, you could cut your total energy use by as much as 9%.* Power strips are good for those energy suckers that use energy even when they’re turned off - up to 10% of the amount you spend on electricity could be going to those greedy machines. You don’t need a power strip to turn off your appliances, of course, but it is nice to only have a couple of switches to worry about, instead of a whole houseful of electronics.
One problem with all of this is that using less energy over the long run so often requires buying something new - light bulbs, appliances, one of those kill-a-watt meters that helps you measure energy flow to a device. I haven’t found a lifecycle analysis yet for CFLs that includes the impact of manufacturing & transporting them all over the world, let alone the additional cost of returning them to manufacturers for safe disposal, or the comparison of those costs to the ones incurred by reasonable alternatives.
The approach I like to take to saving electricity at home is a comfortable blend of conservation (laundry once every 3 weeks, low temperature settings on the furnace & water heater) with 
convenience (CFLs & power strips). The best way to find out what you’re comfortable with is just to take the plunge, and try out a few different options. Who knows - maybe getting rid of the fridge will be part of the lifestyle change that makes you happier & more fulfilled. And if, like my household, you just can’t imagine a house without ice cream, remember that there are plenty of other ways to get your ice cream fix than keeping it in the fridge for days. And there are plenty of other ways to save energy, too!
If you’ve got a favorite strategy or action that helps household energy conservation, I’d love to hear about it! Drop me a comment, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. And enjoy your experiments in saving energy!
*Though it’s most effective to install CFLs in high-use areas, like living rooms, rather than closets or hallways. Their lifespan is limited mostly by how often they’re turned on & off, so it’s more cost-effective in the long term to use them where they’ll be on for more than 5-10 minutes at a stretch.
