Half of Northeast Ohio’s greenhouse gas emissions are generated in the production of the electricity we use every day. About one third of those emissions, more than 10 million tons, can be attributed to the residential sector.

As an intangible good, it’s sometimes difficult to know how much electricity we’re really using and how it’s being used. As a result much of it is needlessly wasted. We might turn on the television and leave the room without thinking about it, but would we do the same if we knew how much it was costing us? The environment?

Reducing or eliminating this waste is the cleanest, safest, cheapest way to reduce your, and the region’s, carbon footprint. And understanding how your home uses electricity gives you the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions and reduce your consumption. When you see how much you’re consuming and know what it’s costing you, you’re more likely to behave differently and make better choices. There are a number of devices and systems available to help you identify, monitor and reduce your electricity use.

The Kill A Watt and Watts up? meters are both plug load meters that allow you to determine the energy use of individual appliances and electronics. Simply plug your device into it and see how many kilowatts it uses. While this is helpful it’s still a bit abstract. You pay for kilowatt hours, not kilowatts. You can calculate the kilowatt hours used simply by determining how many hours the device is typically on/run during a month. Multiply the hours it is run by the kilowatts it uses, and you get kilowatts-hours consumed in a month. Multiply this by the cost per kilowatt-hour (you should be able to easily find this on your electric bill) to get the cost to run the device each month.

If you did this for every device in your house you would have a pretty good idea of which devices are your energy hogs and might choose to use them less frequently or shut them off when you leave the room. You could repeat the exercise while the devices are turned off to identify which devices and appliances are energy vampires, using energy even when they’re off. Remote operated devices are typically energy vampires because they are constantly “listening” for a signal from the remote. And most chargers (e.g. those for laptops, cell phones, MP3 players) draw energy even when they’re not charging the device.

While the above process would be educational and helpful, it can be very time consuming. A less labor intensive option, although more expensive on the front end, is a whole house monitor such as The Energy Detective (TED) or a Greenbox. These devices connect to your fuse box, or a single circuit, and transmit energy usage information either to a remote dashboard that connects to your computer or directly to the web where you can see your current and historical usage. Both calculate the cost of current and cumulative consumption. These devices get more sophisticated the more you’re willing to spend, but all provide you with information that can help you make wiser decisions about your electricity consumption.

Although having the kind of knowledge provided to you by these devices will help you to strategically reduce your electricity consumption and carbon footprint, but there are a number of simple rules that you can follow to save electricity and money without spending money on a new gadget. 

1. Turn off lights when they’re not needed, and use only what’s necessary. Substitute room lighting for task lighting or a table lamp.
2. Use compact fluorescent lightbulbs – they use 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs and have come a long way in recent years!
3. Unplug electronics (TVs, game consoles, computers, printers, laptops, etc.) when they’re not in use or use a power strip that can be turned off when devices aren’t being used.
4. Install motion sensors on outdoor lighting so they’re not on all night.
5. Change the settings on your dishwasher. The light wash setting is usually sufficient, and shut off the heated dry. And only run it when it’s full; partial loads use the same amount of energy...and water! 

Do the above suggested actions and compare past electric bills with your most recent to see the savings, but be sure to compare the kilowatt hours consumed rather than the total dollar amount; the cost per kilowatt hour varies from month to month.