Recently in Saving Electricity Category

Since I run many computers in one of our offices, I'm always glad when winter comes around. It means cold weather, and no more air conditioning costs!

I hope to see a $50 to $75 reduction in my monthly electricity bill.

Its too bad computers make so much heat. Cooling them can get expensive! If computers get too hot, they fail, so I monitor the temperature of the machines I manage every four hours.

The Kill-O-Watt meter makes it super easy to measure how much electricity consumer electronics use. These devices usually cost around $20, but this one is available for $16.

I read in the news headlines yesterday that recent investigations have revealed that malicious hackers have infiltrated the United States energy grid control systems with the apparent intent of disrupting our national infrastructure. For some reason, this news does not seem to have attracted that much attention, but to me it spells serious trouble.

When the power goes out, business and our livelihood grinds to a halt. Doesn't anyone realize this? If hackers put out the lights, how quickly could we put them back on?

This is yet another good reason for local power generation as opposed to the grid. Add the fact that local power cannot be easily disrupted on a massive scale to the list of benefits of local power: higher efficiency (no transportation loss), lower cost, and more environmentally friendly.

Lastly, are these hackers targeting other areas of our infrastructure, like communications and transportation? I hope for goodness sake that the air traffic control system has not been compromised!

Way back when I first started to start saving electricity, I left no stone unturned! I bought compact fluorescent light bulbs, programmable timer outlets, and even tuned all my computers to use less electricity.

I found that I was able to save some electricity, and thus some money. That was a double bonus!

I wasn't able to save too much money, as I didn't use much electricity to begin with. At a certain point, the price of using grid electricity stays relatively the same, whether you really conserve, or get comfortable with using electricity whenever you need it. This is because there is a base price for being connected, and then there is a charge for transporting the electricity to the domicile.

At that point, it almost makes sense to go "off-grid" and use locally generated power from sources like wind, solar, or even fuel generators. I'd like to learn if there are any studies comparing grid and off-grid electricity prices.