Smart Energy Today

It can be hard staying motivated on your energy saving plans, unless you get regular feedback that your efforts are actually saving energy. Whether you are trying to cut back on electricity, natural gas, or any other energy source, waiting until you receive your next bill to see the payoff of your efforts will make it hard to stay focused. Plus waiting for the bills reading won’t provide you with the information you need to determine which of your efforts are producing the best results.

There are two simple methods that you can use to keep an eye on your energy usage. The first will allow you to track all of your energy usage for free, while the second will only keep track of your electricity usage.

Daily Meter Readings

The cheapest way is to just read your meters once a day. This will provide you with daily energy usage and patterns that you can use to determine what activities use the most energy and/or what changes are producing the best energy savings. This methods works not matter what type of meters you have, so it will work for everyone.

This is the method that I plan on using since I need to keep track of our natural gas usage over the winter months. In addition to the electric and gas meters, I will also take a reading of the water meter everyday.

Remote Electric Monitor

If you house uses electricity only, then a remote meter monitor will provide you with the most information about your electricity usage. It will be able to tell you your current electricity usage in real-time along with tracking your total electricity usage over time. With one of these devices you will be able to at a glance tell whether you have remembered to turn everything off as you go to bed or leave the home. With real-time energy usage figures and costs always displayed, it will be a constant reminder of how your activities are effecting your energy usage. The following are two electric monitors that use slightly different techniques to determine your electricity usage. One hooks to your meter and the other one comes with clamps that you clamp on to your power mains.

PowerCost Monitor Home Electricity Monitor

This set-up includes a small wireless display unit and a reading unit that attaches to the outside of your meter. Once you have the reading unit attached to your meter, you will be able to get real-time energy readouts on the indoor display. From the reviews on amazon, this device only works with certain electric meters.

Brultech ECM-1220.H Wireless Electric Monitor

This device uses current transformers that clamp to your main electric lines inside your panel to read your electricity usage. The setup includes a remote wireless display plus software that allows you to download energy usage data from the the unit. This provides you a way to analyze your energy usage and make sure that your not leaving something on when your not home or asleep. This device is considerably more expensive then PowerCost unit, but it will work for any home electrical setup and gives you the option of downloading your data to your computer for more in depth analysis. The companies site makes in unnecessarily hard to get to the pricing/order form, so here is a direct link ECM-1220.H pricing.