Oh, what a year it’s been! I last published this blog on Energy Efficiency Day 2020 – one year ago minus a day. Now it’s #eeday2021, a day chosen by a number of energy efficiency organizations to focus on reducing energy consumption in all areas of our lives and “saving the planet.” Over that time I’ve put my business on pandemic-mode hold while working on some big projects around my home, but now is a good time to get moving again.
Why is energy efficiency important? We hear lots of news about the transition in the energy industry toward greener forms of energy production: solar, wind, hydro, storage, hydrogen, biofuels, you-name-it. Most of those may be interesting to you and me, but the ordinary consumer has little opportunity to take advantage. Yes, maybe you can put solar panels on your roof. That’s a good thing, but not necessarily a great way to save money on your energy bills. Small-scale solar panels will pay for themselves, eventually … in ten years, 15, … if you don’t get price-gouged by an unscrupulous installer. The energy you do have a lot of control over is energy efficiency – the energy you decide not to use. Here are some relevant statistics:
American homes consume about 21 quads of energy each year (EIA 2018 data). A “quad” is a quadrillion BTUs, or 2.93 * 1011 kWh. That’s about 21% of the 100 quads of total energy consumed annually by the USA. Overall, buildings are responsible for about 40% of our energy use. President Biden’s administration has set some very challenging goals for reducing our carbon emissions: electricity sector net-zero by 2035, entire economy net-zero by 2050. Just the electricity sector goal is an astounding shift in our patterns of consumption. 2035 is only 14 years away; to meet this goal power plants that now burn fossil fuels (mainly coal and natural gas) will have to either be retired or retooled to burn carbon-free fuels or renewable fuels in that time frame. Newer plants in this category would be forced to make a major investment or close well before their economic lifetime has ended – meaning the investment strategies and assumptions that justified them are out the window.
These problems are much bigger than you and me. What can we do to help in real ways? For one, we can reduce our personal consumption of energy. Once you take a look at all the ways you use energy, it’s not too hard to see a few real steps you can take.
An obvious step is to change light bulbs and fixtures to LED. This won’t save a huge amount; it’s estimated that lighting accounts for about 4% of residential energy consumption. If you still have any incandescent bulbs in your house, throw them away, whether you’re using them or not! To match the light output of a 60-W incandescent bulb, you need about 7 watts of LED lighting. You’d save 53 watts. Let’s say the LED cost you $1.00, and electricity costs you 10 cents per kWh. You’d have to use this light less than 1500 hours for the electricity savings to pay for the bulb. Most LEDs advertise bulb lifetime on the order of 25,000 – 50,000 hours – so over the life of the bulb, it will save its cost many times over. The only place where you wouldn’t recover the cost of the bulb is in a location where you only turn on the light once or twice a month.
Bigger steps could include reducing the air leakage around doors, windows and other cracks, replacing windows, and adding insulation. These should be considered on a case-by-case basis but think beyond the cost savings. By reducing leakage, you reduce the amount of poor-quality air that is drawn into your house from crawl spaces. Adding insulation in appropriate places, particularly gaps in the current insulation, can reduce the likelihood of condensation forming in the wintertime, resulting in mold and poor indoor air quality.
One big step, one of my favorites, is to replace old air conditioning and heating units with modern electric heat pumps. Heat pumps for wintertime heating got a bad rap when they first came out because they weren’t very good at heating when the outdoor temperatures were low. But modern technology has overcome that problem and now you can expect a heat pump to produce heat efficiently even when the outdoor temperatures are well below freezing. If you go with an electric heat pump for HVAC, consider a heat-pump (hybrid) water heater … in fact, consider eliminating all your combustion appliances and getting rid of gas entirely from your home. That gets rid of a fire hazard as well as another source of poor indoor air quality. And there’s a bonus for some electric customers. Some utilities provide a special electricity rate for residential customers whose homes are all-electric. Duke Energy is one of those utilities. That’s what I did in my home – I got rid of my propane furnace, replaced it with a heat pump, and switched to the all-electric rate which is about 10% lower than the standard residential rate. Yes, that means I pay 10% less for every kWh I consume, not just the electricity used for heating and cooling! Duke doesn’t make it easy to switch; it took me six months and several phone calls to finally get them to push the button. Contact me if you want to learn more!
If you do decide to buy a new heat pump, make sure you find a contractor who won’t over-specify the unit for your home. It’s very common for HVAC contractors to up-size the equipment from what is really required, which results in equipment that runs more frequently and for shorter times, wears out more quickly, doesn’t heat and cool as efficiently as it could, isn’t as good at reducing humidity in the summer, and may be noisier than it needs to be. Why do they do this? It’s because they never want to hear from any customer about how their heat pump has to run “all the time” to keep them cool or warm.
OK, back to the topic: it’s not very hard to realize a savings of 10% on your total energy consumption, especially if you haven’t paid much attention to it before. If every home in the USA did that, it would save 2 quadrillion BTUs of energy each year, or 2% of our country’s total energy use. That’s more than just a drop in the bucket. Let’s all do our part – and save money and health in this time when both are under attack!