Comment by steven2012 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by steven2012 | Hacker News Reader

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In the last couple of years, I've turned into a complete energy fascist, especially after getting my own home and being eaten alive by my first few PGE bills.

Ever since then, I converted to LED lights for everything, and bought a Kill-A-Watt meter to figure out where the biggest hogs were. I even selected components for my desktop based on energy efficiency (90+% efficient power supply, low wattage CPU, graphics card, etc). I also had a dual CPU Xeon processor VMWare server that was using 200W idle, so I shut that down and replaced it with a couple of Intel NUCs. I figure that the Xeon server was costing me about $50/month in electricity alone, and could have easily been replaced by a couple of cloud VMs had I realized sooner.

Also, it turned out that my 2005 LCD tv and my PS3 together drew something like 400W when on. Needless to say I haven't turned on my PS3 in a while, and I've been eyeing a Roku for whenever I do want to watch Amazon Video.

I've cut my energy usage from 700 kWh per month to just over 300 kWh, and I haven't noticed any difference whatsoever in my lifestyle. I just cut out the wasteful electricity usage, and I now have my LED lights programmed to be on almost all night long around the house, turning off late a night automatically. I'm seriously toying with the idea of getting an electric car, since I don't think it would push me into Tier 3 even if I was recharging every night.

I went through a phase like that. I measured everything I could and found I could only improve things by about 10%, with light bulb changes, computer hardware changes, etc. The bulk of my usage was still HVAC, water heater, fridge, washer & dryer, and the rest of the appliances.

Home LED lights and better electronics efficiency might make a dent on total grid usage eventually, but it really feels like it's only scratching at the surface.

Noticed the same thing. I had a media PC that though it was very convenient to have on all the time, I figured I'd save enough to turn it off and on that it'd be worth it. I measured that it ran idle (which it often is) at @ 60W, so even leaving it on 24/7 365 will only cost me @$40 a year. The only light bulbs I swapped out for LEDs are ones that are on a lot where it might make more sense.

As I mentioned, the things that made a huge dent were things like the PS3 that I had on all the time and my Xeon server. Those were just burning a ridiculous amount of electricity and I had no idea until I measured it. I basically stopped using those and that accounted for a large amount of my electricity reduction, since those were specifically pushing me into the higher tiers of rates. I also had the advantage of choosing new appliances for my house, so I went with things that were as energy efficient as I could muster, and my dryer, water heater, furnace, oven are all natural gas.

With regards to your media server, it depends on where you live and if you have a tiered system like I do in CA. 60W = 525 kWh per year. In CA, Tier 4 rates are 0.32/kWh, so it would cost about $170/year to run that server, if you hit that tier. So depending on your overall usage, it could make a decent impact on your electricity bill, especially if it was that specific appliance that was pushing you into a new tier.

Notice that 300kWh/month still comes out to roughly 400 watts used at any given moment. Can you account for them?

My overnight usage is around 300W, so if I remember correctly, it were things like fridge, computers/NAS, wifi router + cable modem, a few clocks, and small hot water heater for tea (I would have gotten rid of this one, but my wife insisted on it, it burns about 40W when it's not boiling water actively).

The fridge would be my guess

Heating or AC (or both) are more likely.

With modern refrigerators, hot water could also be a bigger fraction.

My heating is natural gas, and I have no AC (SF Bay Area). My electricity bill has decreased, but I'm still trying to figure out how to decrease my natural gas bill, especially during the winter months. My theory is that my furnace and hot water heater are very inefficient, so I'm going to look into replacing those next year.

0/3 isn't that bad. Err, yes it is.

If the house is older than the furnace, the problem could also be lack of insulation.

Yes, lack of insulation is definitely a problem for me. I currently have no insulation (including the attic because of a rat problem that was there before I moved in). I do have wireless temperature sensors in various rooms to try to figure out how my house reacts to various weather, and I'm not sure how much adding insulation will actually help me, vs the cost of injecting insulation into the walls, etc. I'm probably going to get attic insulation before summer next year though, but to be honest, the temperature didn't get too crazy this year, despite several days of 90-100 degree weather, so I'm a bit skeptical.

vacuum cleaner, washer, dryer and dish washer must be big consumers too.

Could you describe you LED bulb setup? How many bulbs and rooms, why keep them on late into the night, etc.?

I have LEDs everywhere where I used to have incandescent. I put in recessed LED lights in the kitchen and a couple of other rooms where there were no lights previously. My Hue lights are only in a couple of rooms and the front door.

The reason why I keep them on late into the night is for security purposes. The timing of my lights stay the same, whether I'm at home or not at home, so there is no definable lighting signature to use to figure out if I'm not at home or not.

Thanks for the response. I've been working on a project to manage Internet connected lights automatically. It sounds like you've got the lights doing exactly what you want, but are there things you'd like to do that you can't presently?

What are you using to control all the LED lights?

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that all my LED lights were controlled. I have a Hue setup, so I have 3 lights that I have controlled rather crudely with their software. I have a light switch that will turn on the front light from dusk till dawn, I just need time to install it.

Sounds cool! I had a feeling it was Hue. I really wish it was economical to make every switch controllable with something like zigbee but it doesn't seem to make sense even for new construction. Maybe someday...most applications don't need control of every light.

IFTTT can do Hue control, it could help you do control how you'd like https://ifttt.com/hue

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