The Easiest Way to Reduce Your Solar Power Costs.

The cost of solar panels is a huge part of the overall cost of a solar energy system for a home. The more power you use, the larger system (especially panels) you are going to need. You can cut down the cost of your solar installation by reducing your home’s power requirements.

The largest portion of energy consumption in this country isn’t the car in your driveway. It’s the house the car is sitting in front of, and the building that you work in.

There isn’t a whole lot you can do about the building you work in probably, and for this article, the concern is tightening up your house’s consumption to lower your energy useage, thereby lowering your solar power needs. A 1kwh reduction of power usage for a home = $9000 (approx.) reduction in cost of purchase for a solar system by today’s prices. There are many things you can do that will cost less than the $9k you will save for the reduction, and this article will hopefully give you some ideas to  start with.

Why does my power bill cost so much?

The average price for power in the u.s. is .10 cents per kilowatt hour. The chart below shows typical charges per hour for consumption for common household power hogs.

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The above chart gives you a pretty good idea of how much power you are going to use during the day. For you to say use the burners for an hour to cook breakfast, thats going to cost you .10 cents. For the average time it takes for you to get ready in the morning in the summer, ac running, doing your hair, taking a shower, fixing breakfast will cost you about $3.75 an hour. Thats about $75 a month just to get ready to go to work in the morning.

Where to start?

Before you can know what you need to fix, you need to know what’s broken. To start on your road to energy efficiency, you need a starting point and that’s where an energy audit comes in. An energy audit is a series of tests that will tell you where you are losing the most power. The main culprits in these tests usually end up being the usual suspects. Leaky ducting that lets your ac drain off into crawspaces and attics power robbing bulbs, non efficient appliances and poor efficiency windows. Most energy audits include a pressure test on your duct work to locate any leaks in the system that need to be repaired. Another point in most energy audits are the efficiency of the windows and their seal. Leaky windows will practically drain your wallet. A good energy audit will also probably tell you which of your appliances are using the most power so that you can see if they need repaired, or possibly replaced my a more efficient version. The good news is, most power companies will provide an energy audit for free!

Insulation
A big winner in the war on energy loss in a home is insulation. Many people think that if the house was insulated when it was built (20 years ago) that it must still be good. That is most definately not the case. Insulation gets old, beat down, wet and just generally falls apart.

The average lifespan of insulation is around 7 years, depending on location/humidity, etc. You should have approx. 4″ of insulation in most places in the u.s. in something like an unfinished attic. insulation isn’t really all that expensive and well worth the investment.

*26% of heat lost in a home is due to poorly insulated attics/crawl spaces.

Lights
The light bulb has come a long way since Mr Edison’s first (actually his 2001st) incarnation of the filament bulb. There have been many energy and heat saving advances in the everday workhorse that is the lightbulb. The newest version of the home bulb is a super efficient flourescent version or CFL. CFL stands for Compact Flourescent Light.

CFL’s can replace most standard light bulbs and can be used anywhere that standard bulbs can be used. On average, these save somewhere in the neighborhood of about 75% of power compared to standard incandescents. For instance, the average 60 watt 800 lumiens (measure of light output) incandescent bulb, uses 60watts of power, or costs you about .6 cents an hour to run. The standard 800 lumiens CFL light uses around 12 watts, or about .1 cent an hour to run for the same amount of light. Also, CFL’s have a longer life so they do not need to be replaced as much as incandescents, saving money on the bulb itself. Installing CFL’s in place of incandescents save approximately $40 over the lifetime of each light. If you have quite a few bulbs in your house, these savings can be substantial.

Also, flourescents dont put out the same mount of heat as an incandescent which doesnt warm up the air, requiring your cooling bills to inch their way upwards.

*On average, CFL’S use about 75% less power for the same amount of light as standard incandescents.

Appliances

Appliances of different sizes have long been the bane of the frugal energy usage crowd. Only as of late have there been a big push towards more energy efficient. EnergyStar appliances pretty much set the standard for energy efficient appliances of all sizes and types.

To give you an idea of the kind of savings an EnergyStar appliance might give you, lets look at your standard clothes washer.
A standard clothes washer will cost you approximately $1310 to operate for its lifetime. $630 of those lifetime costs will be for water usage, while $680 will be for energy consumed. In compoarison, a comparable EnergyStar washer will cost about $760 for its lifetime, with $290 being water, and $470 being energy consumption. Over the lifetime use of the appliances, an EnergyStar unit will cost you approximately 50% less to operate.
Refrigerators are another place where energy is wasted in a home by inefficient appliances. On average the EnergyStar units save about 40% on power useage than current standard models.Investing in the purchase of energy efficient appliances that stay with the home, such as stoves and refrigerators also increase the resale value of your home as well.  

*On average the EnergyStar units save about 40% on power useage than current standard models.

Windows

WIndows account for a solid 10% to 25% of your home’s energy bills. Heat and AC can flow out of old inefficient windows at an alarming rate. If you have single pane windows, replace them. There is no way that single plane windows can even come close to the efficiency of even the lower tier double pane windows. If the single planes are older wood, or the favorite of hot climates, the aluminum framed roll-out windows, they might as well not be there.