First published: 11 June 2018 then updated 27 June 2020
Most countries have energy labeling, but so what!?
It took me a bill shock event to get me to really think about what to do. Of course managing your energy is good for the pocket but it is also good for the environment. You might ask how can anybody with a Ph.D, in this very field, get caught out like this? The answers is simply based on a few considerations:
🚦When you do something for a living you don’t necessarily want to have much to do with that field in your spare time, not so?
🚦When the bills are all within tens-of-dollars of each other, each month, you tend to “take your eyes off of the ball”, as it were 🤓. I guess I have so many things competing for my energy and attention that I generally do not fix anything until it’s broke. Unfortunately, not monitoring you energy bill already qualifies as “being broke” 🤓
🚦The “bill-shock” is something that you get days or weeks after something within your house changes, this with respect to you energy consumption. It is what I call an “after the fact” event, this the criticality of having a phone app that warns you when your bill goes over some preset threshold in kWh/day. I now have this but it took this energy cost-spike to start “practising what I preach” 🤓
I have a Ph.D in strategic management around energy management, so have sacrificed significant free time in the study, research and development of strategic frameworks to help all people save money, become more sustainable by saving on utilities bills.
Watch my video to see one methodology that may be used:
The Bill shock! post describes how you can monitor your bill and calculate your daily energy consumption in kWh.
At a very fundamental level just knowing that each kWh costs a certain number of cents and being aware of how many cents you are using per day, is a very good start. In Australia, in Victoria, smart meters have been mandated for a while so to get that daily energy consumption from your retailer is really easy. In NSW, where I live, it is only mandated for new builds.
As explained in my Bill Shock! post, I rent the property that I live at so I couldn’t make a permanent installation. I did get owner permission to make a little hole in the distribution panel for the antenna of my smart meter, so that it could reach my Wifi router.
I monitor the following trend line, especially when running my solar heating and filtration system for the pool (wattsC(W)) or the reverse cycle air-conditioning for heating in winter. The total house load profile including the pool system is labelled wattsA(W), this on the y-axis of that chart. This keeps me, well enough, informed as to my costs on a real-time basis. In my case every kWh represents a 25c ‘assualt’ on my wallet.
“Some have studied their fields over countless years, thus you can trust them more than those trying to make a quick sale…”
Incidentally, PowerWin is currently being ported from Visual Basic to a web served application. I will give away free versions of the desktop version to those whom need the older version, whilst it is being ported. Just drop me an email at homepiggie@gmail.com and I’ll give you a free license and a Windows Installer download FTP site.
I have to voice my appreciation for your kind-heartedness giving support to persons that must have help on in this area. Your real commitment to getting the solution throughout had become pretty interesting and has in most cases permitted some individuals just like me to achieve their pursuits. Your own useful information entails a whole lot to me and even more to my office colleagues. Thank you; from all of us.