Measuring your energy consumption

I have started writing a blog on sustainability issues, and have written a few posts already, but have only now linked it to my Facebook account. If this is the first time you are seeing it, welcome. Please feel free to post comments.

It is very difficult to manage something you can't measure, so a good first step in controlling your electricity usage is to get a way to measure it. I was lucky enough to be given an OWL energy monitor. (Click the link for local availability). It has two pieces. The first is a sensor (coil) that clips around the live wire bringing power into the house. The second piece is a portable wireless display of your current and cumulative consumption.

The OWL portable display reading kW.

One of the first things we did was to go around the house switching off things until we had a zero reading. Then we went back switching stuff on to see how much power it was using.

The results:

- around 750 watts for the koi pond filter pump

- around 200-300 watts each for the two desktop PC's

- around 100-200 each for the fridge and deep freezers

- occasional very high consumption for kettle, microwave, oven, hot plates, and the washing machine and dishwasher when they are heating.

- thanks to our solar hot water panel, I have never seen the power consumption from the hot water cylinder.