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Surprise: Not-so-glamorous conservation works best
He exchanged incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents, put switches and surge protectors on his electronic equipment to reduce the “phantom load” - the trickle consumption even when electronic equipment is off - and bought energy-efficient appliances.
Two things happened: He saw a two-thirds reduction in his electric bill, and he found himself under audit by Mass Electric. The company thought he’d tampered with his meter. “They couldn’t believe I was using so little,” he says.
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Cutting back on electricity used for lighting (9 percent of residential usage nationwide) presents the quickest savings-to-effort ratio. The EPA estimates that changing only 25 percent of your home’s bulbs can cut a lighting bill in half. Incandescent bulbs waste 90 percent of their energy as heat, and compact fluorescents, which can be up to five times more efficient, last years longer as well.
I am far from doing everything I could, but at least I have installed compact fluorescent light bulbs as old ones burned out. Actually I don’t think I have changed a light bulb in several years (another benefit of these energy efficient lights is they last a long time).
Related: Engineers Save Energy - Wind Power - Millennium Technology Prize for LED lights… - MIT’s Energy ‘Manhattan Project’ - $10 Million for Science Solutions
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