Edmonds’ Save Energy Now program saving homeowners real money
Save Energy Now participants have reduced their annual natural gas usage by over 12 percent, as of the end of June 2010. The blue curve on this graph represents the annual heating demand – which shows that the mild 2010 winter accounted for much of the savings through March, but that participants continued to drive down usage as the year progressed. Of note, most participants joined the program in late February. Well done!
Save Energy Now program participants have reduced their annual electricity usage by about 3 percent. This is a sizable reduction of consumption, but is not on track to achieve the goal of a 10 percent reduction by the end of 2010. From a carbon emissions standpoint, it is better to continue to focus on natural gas reductions, but we should continue to find ways to reduce electricity consumption as well.
Everyone’s favorite metric is cost, and SEN participants are well, well ahead in this category. Overall, program participants have reduced their annual utility bills by a combined $2,525 for the 10 homes in the study. Yes, that’s an average of over $250 saved, per house, just through June of this year! We have one house in the program that has racked up nearly $500 in saving, and is going to shoot for an overall savings by the end of the year, of $1000.
Now that we know that this approach to conservation works, it’s time to start rolling out a bigger program, Sustainable Works. I invite you all to visit the Sustainable Works website to read up on the Edmonds/Lynnwood project, and, if you like, you can sign up for the program right there on the website.
Thanks for publishing this! Interested people can learn more about:
Sustainable Edmonds Community Projects:
http://sustainable-edmonds.org/community-projects/
“Save Energy Now” program blog – see what the participants say, and ask for more info.
http://edmondsenergy.blogspot.com/
To sign up for a subsidized energy audit and home retrofit (Edmonds and Lynnwood only):
http://www.sustainableworks.com/
Or, to email us at Sustainable Edmonds directly with questions:
SustainableEdmonds@gmail.com
Congratulations to Sustainable Edmonds for planting the seed with the Save Energy Now Program.
Now it’s time to go big and get as many houses as possible audited and weatherized in Edmonds with the Sustainble Works campaign this fall.
Like they keep on saying,weatherization is the “low hanging fruit” in order to quickly lower our energy consumption and reduce our carbon footprint as a community, without major lifestyle changes.