Summer "Netting"

This summer we netted 2,440kwh of electricity to carry us through the winter heating season. This was 740 hours more than last summer. This was partially due to higher generation this summer (about 220kwh) as July in particular was a banner month vs. a rain filled summer '09. However, the additional 520kwh was purely from conservation.

First, we still had some trailing construction work last summer so usage was higher due to that but it was minimal. It has mostly come from learning about our usage patterns in no small measure from our TED whole house monitoring system. That's really provided deep insight into what appliances use what amount of energy. We've done things like only use one hot water heater in the summer (and probably will continue to into winter except when we have overnight guests) and using our oven more intelligently (cooking items at the same time or consecutively to leverage the previous cooking heat already in the oven).

And so far this fall we haven't had to use the geo heat (and good thing since that's still being repaired). The temps have been warm, we've been getting good passive solar gain, and the fireplace has supplied a nice pick-up for cooler nights. I'm hoping not to have to use regular geo heat until mid-Nov on our way to a net zero year.