Metrics for Energy Use

Whether you want to track your energy use at home or the office because you are a believer in the green movement or you simply hope to save some money in a tough economy, there are a variety of ways to do this now. Formerly, you had to rely on spotty data found on your utility bill and vague ideas like “keep the lights off when you leave a room” and hope that it worked. Not any more!

You can now track your whole house electricity use, specific appliances (you can even have them tweet to you, though that won’t help you with metrics), your carbon footprint, your green energy scores, and more. Many of the energy-tracking tools also need a little help from gadgets you attach to appliances, house electrical systems, and such. Some also work better if you link up your utility company sites for double the data.

Both The Energy Detective (TED) and Wattvision (see Figures 20-10 and 20-11) track whole-house energy use. Wattvision adds an extra social layer by allowing you to share your house data and see how you fare against your neighbors as well. Again, you can export this data to spreadsheets so that you can use the metrics you get to achieve your goals.

StepGreen and apps like it are made more for people who enjoy green causes. It lets you compete with your friends in supporting green actions (see Figure 20-12) and causes, showing you how you stack up in everything from turning lights off to sponsoring polar bears. This is mostly motivational, but can lead to surprising life decisions if tracked over time.

With the high number of incentives for green business today, you may want to think of applying these metrics to your business arsenal sooner rather than later.