Erica Siddall, one of our regional Net Zero Carbon Project Managers who leads on clergy housing, suggests tracking your home energy usage as a great way to understand your usage, care for our planet and perhaps reduce costs.
She writes:
High costs, particularly for our energy usage, continue to put pressure on family finances. Demystifying our utility bills is a proactive way to take back some control, and if this isn't something you normally do, this article is for you!
I was inspired to be proactive about utilities tracking by a clergyperson who had initially trained as an accountant. She used her business acumen to create a spreadsheet that made her life easier: tracking her usage and bills allowed her to spread her costs through the year and kept the utility company from accruing a large credit on her behalf. It also helped her easily calculate the Heating & Lighting figures needed for annual clergy tax appointments. It took me about two hours to input our own bills (going back three years or so) into her Excel framework and found that after the initial investment of time, it is quick to update when your monthly bill comes through. Contact me if you would be interested in template to use yourself.
Tracking your usage is a great way to keep connected with your carbon footprint. You can note the impact of changes in your home, for instance if you have made any fabric improvements or gone on an energy saving push with your family. And in case you haven’t already, please consider switching to a green utility provider. The Church of England has already done the hard part of analysing and listing the companies that can offer such tariffs. When our family switched, we noticed savings compared to "traditional" (non-green) utilities; it was a no-brainer for us and for the planet.
Finally, having a good understanding of your billing makes it easier to ensure your tariff is still competitive, as well as quickly spotting billing mistakes. For instance the time when our neighbour’s beautiful old (and expensive to run) property was accidentally added to our utility account, and our bills skyrocketed!
Solar generation tracking
If your house benefits from solar PV panels, and these were installed before your occupation, your energy savings are probably taken for granted, in your mental model of how much it costs to run the property. You might be asked to provide quarterly meter readings, but even if not, you can track your meter readings to see the monthly (or quarterly) change. The difference is what gets exported back to the grid: if there is only minor change month-to-month, it means either that you have managed to use most of the self-generation (great job!) or perhaps it was a cloudy winter, or there could be a problem with one of your panels. Larger changes month-to-month mean much more was generated than used by yourself.
Just like with general utilities tracking, I found that with a small amount of thought I was able to increase the benefit to our household, while reducing our cost and environmental impact. These tweaks are mostly behavioural: running your major applicants sequentially rather than at the same time, for instance delaying the start of the dishwasher until the sun is higher in the sky, and delaying the washing machine until when the dishwasher should have finished. And now that I am aware of the benefits of tracking, I will be paying closer attention whenever the clocks change, adjusting the timing of high usage activities to realise larger savings.
The bottom line is, don't be afraid of your PV meter even though it may look really complicated. Depending on the model of your meter there are plenty of Youtube explainers. When I plotted our meter readings, I could relate it to the gorgeous lockdown spring we had in 2020. I like it when I can relate a chart to real-world experience. And if tracking self-generation means you can spot problems early, it can save you money. That’s another win-win for the planet!
Erica Siddall, Net Zero Project Manager (Clergy Housing Lead)
