Climate Stewardship Opportunities

Prairie Climate Stewardship Network

Households

1) Breakdown Home Energy Use

Some facts on what we are using and on making a difference.

Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs

2) Heating & Cooling Systems

3) Electricity & Appliances

Television Sets

Phantom Loads/Vampire Energy

4) Water Heating

Energy Saving Tools Links

Compact Fluorescent Calculator

TV Calculator

Opportunities for Energy Efficiency and Conservation: starting at home

Before we use less energy in our households, we need to know just what we are using and in which areas. Not all of us will choose to replace existing features and appliances in our home with energy efficient ones. For those of us who will wait to replace what we have with energy efficient models, there are still things we can do to conserve energy. Select any of the "energy conservation steps" links below and find out how.

The following facts and steps towards energy efficiency and conservation are summarized from "Efficiency and Conservation," published by the National Energy Education Development Project.

This information is also available in a brochure format.

Breakdown of Home Energy Use

Heating/Cooling: 56% energy conservation steps

Lighting/Appliance: 23% energy conservation steps

Water Heating: 16% energy conservation steps

Refrigeration: 5% energy conservation steps

Some facts on what we are using and where it is going

• Households use about one-fifth of the total energy consumed in the US each year.
• Household operations account for 35 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and 32 percent of the common air polluting emissions.
• The average home contributes up to two times as much carbon dioxide as the average automobile.
• Energy sources that power heating and cooling systems in households emit more than 500 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.
• About a third of a typical home's heat loss occurs around and through doors and window.
• Appliances account for 20 percent of a typical household's energy consumption, with refrigerators, clothes washers, and clothes dryers at the top of the list.
• As a nation, we spend one-quarter of the electricity we use on lighting, at a cost of more than $37 billion annually. Much of this expense is unnecessary, caused by using inefficient incandescent light bulbs.
• Incandescent light bulbs only use 10 percent of energy consumed to produce light, with the remainder energy given off as heat.

Some facts on making a difference

• A two-degree adjustment to your thermostat setting can lower heating bills by 4% and prevent 500 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year.
• You can save 10 percent or more on your energy bill by reducing air leaks in your home.
• If the average home were to be equipped with only EnergyStar products, energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by about 30 percent.
• Increasing lighting efficiency is one of the quickest and easiest ways to decrease your energy bill -- if you replace 25 percent of your light bulbs in high-use areas with fluorescents, you can save up to 50% of your lighting bill.
• That compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) use only one-quarter the energy of an equivalent incandescent bulb, lasts 8 to 12 times longer, and for each CFL you install, you can save $30 to $60 over the life of the bulb.
• In typical home, one CFL can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 260 pounds per year.
• Every ten-degree reduction on your water-heating thermostat can create an energy saving of 3 to 5 percent.

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs

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For more information on compact fluorescent light bulbs go to GE Lighting Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb FAQs and Westinghouse FAQs.

For information on how to choose and where to use CFLs, including light output equivalency (when replacing incandescent with CLFs), sizes and shapes, warm or cool light, go to Energy Star Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs.

For information on determining when to turn off lights, including CFLs, go to US Department of Energy Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. "Turning off fluorescent lights for more than 5 seconds will save more energy than will be consumed in turning them back on again. Therefore, the real issue is the value of the electricity saved by turning the light off relative to the cost of relamping a fixture."

To find full spectrum compact fluorescent light bulbs go to RE Williams Contractor Inc. and Full Spectrum Solutions.

For information on proper disposal of CFLs Download PDF

Heating and Cooling Systems

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Thermostat management: A two-degree adjustment to your thermostat setting can lower heating bills by 4% and prevent 500 pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere each year.

Proper insulation and weatherization can prevent warm air from leaking into your home in cooling seasons and out of your home in heating seasons, thereby saving a substantial amount of energy

Caulk, seal, and weather-strip all seams, cracks, and openings to the outside. Often, the effect of many small leaks in a home is equivalent to a wide open door. Taking care of these is the easiest money saving measure.

Ensure doors and windows are energy efficient in that they are insulated and seal tightly, as a third of a typical home's heat loss occurs around and through doors and windows. If you do not want to replace your doors an windows with and energy efficient one, you can do the following to be more energy efficient.

Doors:

• make sure doors seal tightly and have door sweeps at the bottom of doors to prevent air leaks; and
• install insulated storm doors to provide an additional barrier to leaking air.

Windows:

• caulk any cracks around windows and make sure they seal tightly;
• add storm windows or sheets of clear plastic to create additional air barriers; and
• hang insulated drapes: during heating seasons open them on sunny days and close them at night; during cooling seasons, close them during the day and open them at night.

Strategically place trees, shrubs and other landscape structures to block the wind and provide shade.

Electricity and Appliances

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Many energy efficient appliances have an initial purchase cost, but they save significant amounts of money in lower energy costs. Over a life of an appliance, an energy-efficient model is always a better deal.

When replacing an appliance, choose an EnergyStar appliance. These are appliances that have been identified by the US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy as the most energy-efficient products in their class.

Refrigerators account for 20% of household electricity use. Replacing an older refrigerator with a new energy efficient one can save significantly on energy bills and emissions.

With older models, a large amount of electricity can be saved by:

• setting the refrigerator temperature at 37 degrees Fahrenheit;
• setting the freezer temperature at three degrees Fahrenheit;
• making sure that the energy saver switch is operational and in use; and
• ensuring the gaskets around the doors are clean and seal tightly. (If you can easily pull out a piece of paper when the door is closed, you need to replace the gaskets.)

Using compact fluorescent lighting instead of incandescent can cut lighting costs 30% to 60%, while enhancing light quality and reducing environmental impact.

With lighting and appliances, when not in use, turn them off.

Rather than using a clothes dryer, hang your clothes up on a line to dry.

Phantom Loads: go to.

Television Set

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Thinking about replacing your television set?

Consider the following as you choose what you buy

As of November 2008, EPA revised the Energy Star television specifications to raise the bar on efficiency requirements to cover all modes of operation.

• An Energy Star qualified television in now 30 per cent more efficient than non-qualified products in all modes of operation (standby and active.)

Prior to November 2008

• Federal standards (Energy Star) measured only a television set's "standby mode," when the TV is idle, even though "active mode" accounts for 80 to 95 percent of its annual energy use;
• A television that earned the government's Energy Star rating for its efficiency in standby mode might draw more power in active mode than another model that didn't earn the label; and
• Nearly 100 percent of televisions on the market earned Energy Star stickers.

Energy Use

In general,

• rear projection uses the least amount of energy,
• followed by LCDs,
• then plasmas.

For a list of energy efficient televisions go to “Energy Efficient TVs: The NRDC Listings.”

CNET’s “The Chart: Review of HDTV power consumption compared” provides a detailed listing of rear projection, LCD and plasma television sets. To find out the energy efficiency rating of a television set, click on the item.

“The most-efficient HDTVs also earn our "power saver" badge. Here are the qualifications:

A TV must be a current model that was measured by CNET's reviews team to have a default picture mode that uses 0.2 watt per square inch or less and its overall wattage must be among the upper-third of TVs we've tested with an energy rating of Good, all while achieving a brightness level higher than 40 footlamberts.

Since we created the award in April 2009, most of the LCD TVs we've reviewed have qualified . . . . *None of the plasma TVs we've reviewed since that date qualify.”

Why What Each of Us Chooses Matters

The price of big-screen high-definition TVs is coming down. More and more people will soon be able to afford them.

Bigger screens aren't the only culprits for TV's growing energy draw. The nation's move to high-definition TV, or HDTV, requires sets to deliver more picture clarity, which draws more power.

If we do not choose to buy energy efficient television sets, we will lock-in power consumption at higher levels – people keep a TV five to 15 years.

There are about 275 million TVs currently in use in the U.S., consuming over 50 billion kWh of energy each year — or 4 percent of all households' electricity use. This is enough electricity to power all the homes in the state of New York for an entire year.

Taking the energy efficiency of a new TV into consideration is smart, because today’s TVs and all the connected components like DVRs (Digital Video Recorders), DVD players, and speakers can add nearly $200 to your energy bill annually.

Americans are watching some 16 percent more TV than in the 1980s – if DVD and video-game viewing is included.

Using the best available technology could reduce this new generation of big-screen TV "active mode" consumption by at least 25 percent, saving 10 billion kilowatt-hours per year.

In addition to chopping residential electric bills by $1 billion, using the best available technology would prevent 7 million extra tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

(From: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0616/p13s02-stct.htm “As TVs grow, so do electric bills;” http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/energyeff/tv.pdf “Televisions: Active Mode Energy Use and Opportunities for Energy Savings;” GreenTech Media Newsletter “How Much Energy Does It Take To Watch TV,” 11/11/2007, http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.showProductGroup&pgw_code=TV, http://energystar.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/energystar.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3095&p_created=1180022918, http://energystar.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/energystar.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=4909&p_created=1200426433, http://reviews.cnet.com/green-tech/tv-power-test/?tag=greenGuideBodyColumn.2)

For printer-friendly version of "Thinking about replacing your television set?" Download PDF or Download Word before printing.

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Phamtom Loads/Vampire Energy

Phantom loads are electrical devices operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even when you think the device is turned off.

Action: Reduce phantom loads and conserve energy by plugging appliances to a power strip that is equipped with its own power switch.  Switch the power on and off as needed.*

The typical US home has more than 25 phantom loads.

Phantom Loads:

•  Include cordless phones, remote-controlled television sets and DVD players, digital clocks, stereos, cell phone chargers and other devices that get their power through a transformer cube, plugged into the wall
•  40 percent of the electricity consumed by these appliances occurs when they are idle, waiting to be used.
•  Drive up electricity consumption, raising monthly bills by 2 to 8 percent.

*Appliances with remote controls:  this method will disable the unit's remote until the power is turned on.

Source: Minnkota Messenger, September/October 2007, pp 6-7

source: http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/transparency/008/trans008vampireenergy.html

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Water Heating

Four ways to conserve energy and reduce your water heating bills:

• Use less hot water.
• Turn down the thermostat on your water heater.
• Insulate your water heater and pipes.
• Buy a new, more efficient water heater.

Reducing the amount of hot water used. This can be done with little or no initial cost and only minor changes in lifestyle:

• Use low-flow, non-aerating showerheads and faucets.
• Take showers instead of baths.
• Take shorter showers.
• Fix leaks in faucets and pipes.
• Use the lowest temperature wash and rinse settings on clothes washers.
• Most water heater thermostats are set much higher than necessary. Lowering the temperature setting on your water heater can save energy. Every ten-degree reduction on the thermostat can create an energy saving of 3 to 5 percent.

A new, energy efficient water heater can save $200 or more annually in water heating costs.

A solar water-heating system can save up to $350 a year.