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Electricity Usage

I've been obsessively recording our daily electricity usage since we moved in to first home in Jan 2004. We don't own a car or use gas or wood for heating - so our electricity use is a rough indicator of how our carbon footprint is trending.

Live Excel data updated daily

Year	kWh/yr (Units)	kWh/day (Units)	Units per person	Comments
2004	6524	17.9	3262	We started with standard electric heaters as our only heating source. I installed ceiling insulation in April, under floor insulation in June, and a heatpump in September
2005	5176	14.2	2588	Using Solar PV's to run all house lights from July.
2006	5160	14.1	2580	Added solar hot water system in June.
2007	5401	14.8	2400	Added wall insulation January-March. Experimental double glazing in June. Had a baby(!) in October and replaced washing machine with a more energy & water efficient front loader (which is getting a LOT of use).
2008	7132	19.5	2377	We used 32% more electricity this year than 2007. It doesn't look so bad on a "per person" basis, but - climate change is due to cumulative total emissions, it doesn't care about efficiency per person. Reducing our carbon foot print is hard.
2009	7336	20.1	2445

For comparison

Michael Lawley's house (four person living) averages under 5 kWh/day. He uses a wood burner for heating and has a much better designed and insulated house.

New Zealand electricity consuption per capita

Year	kWh/yr	kWh/day	Source
1990	8510	23.3	IEA
2000	9071	24.8	IEA
2000	8723	23.9	World Bank
2001	8510	23.3	World Bank
2001	9264	25.4	IEA
2002	8831	24.2	World Bank
2002	9088	24.9	IEA
2004	10238	28.0	UN Development Reports
2005	9756	26.7	IEA
2005	9436	25.8	CIA World Factbook

I don't know whether these include industrial electricity consumption or not. It's interesting that the numbers are jump around so much. I assume different sources use different population numbers.

Notes

In 2007 we were averaging just over 14 kWh per day (8 kWh per day in summer up to 24 kWh in winter). 2008 we averaged 19.5 kWh per day - so we're heading in the wrong direction energy-wise. Although we are still well below the 8000 kWh threshold that makes us eligible for the "low user" discount.

My 2010 goal is now to keep us under 8000 kWh.

Our electricity usage includes all heating and cooking, plus the usual TV's, radio's etc. Plus an electric lawnmower and the web server that serves up this site. It does not include the weather station and it's laptop, which run off my solar PV panels.

Overseas readers may be interested to know that New Zealand's electricity supply is 65-70% generated from renewables (mostly hydro and geothermal). This means my setup has a a much smaller carbon foot print here than it would in the USA/UK/Europe where a lot of electricity is generated from coal.

Interesting:

Wellington electricity usage by hour (1 June-25 June 2009) [Source:http://www.systemoperator.co.nz/zone-loadings]

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Page last modified on 22 February 2010 at 03:40 PM