Reducing electricity consumption — A day by day diary
Let my adventure toward reducing my consumption begin!
Before I start reducing my consumption, I want to quantify how much electricity I consume each day, partly because I need this activity to complete the mapping of my home electrical appliances. I have started writing a list of all the electrical devices I use during my day and their consumption. I want to take the first few days to measure how many minutes I use each appliance so that I can establish an average consumption.
DAY 1
Today is the first day I am measuring the interaction time with each appliance. I realized that it is taking longer than I expected. Fortunately, both my phone and my computer automatically track usage time. Being the two devices I use the most, some of the work has been done.
During dinner I talked with my family about this project. I live in Gallarate, 30 minutes from Milan, with my parents and sister. Our house is a single house consisting of what I call one and a half floors: the second floor is a full-fledged apartment, the second floor has only living room, bathrooms, my room, my sister’s room and the living room. As the house is quite large, a total of 300sqm, the consuming items are many and I use less than half of them. Also, I spend most of my day at university so I don’t have much control over consumption at home. My family liked the project and will tend to reduce consumption but they do not take responsibility for participating in the project. Therefore, only items that I use during my days will be part of my analysis (and map). Items used by my family but that have benefits for me (oven, refrigerator…) will be part of my analysis.
DAY 2
I have noticed that instead of focusing on measuring my daily consumption, I am already thinking about how I can reduce it, and the temptation to lower the consumption in my chart is strong. But I have to remind myself that I need to have a realistic representation of what I consume each day in order to reduce the amount.
DAY 3
I have finished recording my consumption. My activities are very repetitive and fairly constant so I think I can close my research. The total of my daily consumption is 5494.2 Wh. I have decided that I will illustrate the different consumptions as I explain how I reduce them.
Expectations: some consumption will be fairly easy to reduce since I can shift consumption to other places (train, university). It will be more complicated to reduce the electricity consumed for cooking or entertainment.
DAY 4
Today the reduction of consumption begins.
The first changes began in the morning. I start each morning with a shower. Since the temperatures are still not too high, I decided to avoid blow drying my hair. This may seem a bit extreme to some, but during the summer I always avoid using it so it won’t be too complicated. I saved about 175 Wh in this way.
For breakfast I eat cookies with milk so I don’t use a stove or microwave. I could not avoid a coffee made with Nespresso so my consumption is 50 Wh. My family also had coffee so the total is 200 Wh. However, I did not use the Aeroccino for the coffee foam and convinced my family to give it up as well. We saved 19 Wh. I am not sure it is worth it because the consumption of this appliance is not high.
Starting today, both my two devices, Macbook and iPhone, are charged. The computer will probably need to be charged but I will do that in college.
DAY 5
Today’s breakfast was conducted in the same way as yesterday’s. I am not convinced about how I am dealing with it. However, I had an idea on how to save money on the coffee maker. I will try to put my plan into action tomorrow.
Instead of charging my phone and computer overnight, I took advantage of the train ride and the University.
My lunches all take place at the University so I don’t consume anything to warm them up. They are mostly sandwiches or salads, so preparing them also requires no electricity.
DAY 6
As I mentioned yesterday, I figured out how not to use Nespresso every day. At the supermarket, I bought instant Nescafé and will use that to brew a canteen of coffee. This way I will also be able to take some to the university. Consumption made outside my home should not be part of the project, but since I am always away from home, I am trying to reduce my electricity use at the University as well. I am not sure that making coffee this way can become my habit because the difference in the quality of coffee is a lot. However, I decided to try it for these two weeks. Today I therefore saved 50 Wh of Nespresso + 19 Wh of Aeroccino.
These days I stopped using the iMac that is present on my desk. Being all day at the Polytechnic I don’t use it much, it usually serves as a second screen when I study at home but there has been no need these days. In the evening I use it to watch TV series but I decided to replace this activity with reading a book. I love reading but I usually use the time on the train to read my books because I am too tired in the evening. This way I saved 168 Wh.
GIORNO 8
Sometimes in the evening I watch television with my family. To avoid this consumption, this evening we went to the movies. Clearly this is not feasible every night however it worked for today. We saved 103 Wh.
DAY 10
I am surprised because I have managed to carry out all my habits for reduction in electricity use. No hair dryer, no coffee, no charging electronic devices overnight. I keep thinking of ways to further reduce my consumption. Often when I am away from home I avoid taking escalators or elevators. Although these activities do not reduce my household consumption, they are not difficult habits to implement into my routine even after this exercise is over.
This evening I had to work on my computer to complete assignments. My computer battery, which I had charged at the university, is good but not enough to cover the entire evening. I therefore had to carry out a charge on my laptop.
DAY 11
Also this evening I had to charge my computer and, needing a second screen, I asked my sister if I could use hers instead of using the iMac.
DAY 12
My adventure in reducing household consumption ends today. It is a bit complicated for me to calculate whether I actually halved my consumption because I struggled to measure consumption for the kitchen since I was not at home at the time of dinner preparation. In my own small way, I made an effort to use fewer appliances and in a more conscious way.
I think I will carry forward some of my new habits such as using the hair dryer less, perhaps shifting the shower time from the morning to the evening (going out with wet hair in the morning in December does not seem like a wise idea). Other habits are less sustainable, such as avoiding coffee in the morning. The idea of the water bottle is good for bringing coffee to college, but the pleasure of drinking good coffee in the morning is one I don’t want to give up. Charging the phone on the train is also a habit I can carry on. My phone is fairly recent so the battery life is good, so it should not be a problem to move charging from home to transportation or to the university.
This exercise helped me a lot to be more conscious in the use of electricity. I started using fewer lamps and not wasting unnecessary power.
