## Tuesday, November 13, 2007

### The effect of trying to save electricity

Over the last couple of years I've tried to cut down electricity use in two simple ways:

1. Gradually replace incandescent light bulbs with low power fluorescents. I only do this when an incandescent bulb dies, currently I'd estimate that half the bulbs in the house are converted.

2. Switching off appliances that are not in use. This has been achieved by grouping appliances on power strips with physical on/off switches. When not in use I can kill off the TV and related appliances, the Internet and all networking, computers and peripherals.

I've not got a couple of years of data from electricity bills. For the first 10 months of 2006 I used 2,821 kWh of electricity, for the same period on 2007 (during which I've implemented 1 and 2 above) I've used 2,345. That's 83% of the amount used in 2006. And that's despite an increase in electricity use during the winter of 2007.

Here's a chart which shows the trend.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, you might enjoy my travel book for people interested in science and technology: The Geek Atlas. Signed copies of The Geek Atlas are available.

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