Reuters Money

People who are able to track their daily energy consumption cut their electric bills by 10 percent on average, according to a study done last year by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory of the U.S. Energy Department.

Catherine Cuellar, a 36-year-old who lives in a 1,200 square-foot loft in Dallas is a prime example of how this works. An employee of Oncor, a local power delivery company, she has been pilot-program tester for a “smart” utility meter that records her electricity consumption like any such meter, but also sends that information in real time to a receiver she keeps in her home.

Each time she flicks on a light, powers up the air conditioner or takes a shower with water warmed by an electric heater, the numbers on the receiver start ticking up, tell her what each electrical indulgences costs.

“It’s turned me into a miser,” she says. As they burn out, Cuellar is replacing her incandescent bulbs with low-energy CFLs. She has shortened her shower time, keeps the AC turned up to a conservative 78 (much to her fiancé’s chagrin) during the summer. And even during an unseasonably cold Texas winter, she kept her electric heat turned off while she was at work, donning extra sweaters until her place warmed up in the evening. She only puts full loads of laundry in her electric dryer, hanging smaller loads on a rack. This spring she’ll buy ceiling fans so she can trim her AC use even more.

“My electric bill is always under $100,” says Cuellar, who figures she is spending 10 to 15 percent less on electricity. “No one I know with a comparable space has an electric bill that’s under $100.”

The device has even turned her into an energy detective. “I know when my energy use is higher than it should be, and I go looking for things to turn off,” she says. Recently she discovered her electricity use had spiked while she was away at work all day. She began scouring the house for the light or appliance she’d left on and eventually found a bag of ice keeping her freezer door open. “I might not have found it until the next time I went into freezer; I only caught it because I had the in-home monitor,” she says.

A growing number of monitoring devices are coming on the market these days, most are affordable and many can pay for themselves in less than a year. Here a few of the options worth considering.

One outlet at a time

• Device: The Belkin Conserve Insight Energy Monitor
• Cost: $25 to $30 at electronics stores
• How it works: Plug Belkin’s device into an outlet and then plug a lamp, kitchen appliance, computer, phone charger or other electronic device into the Belkin. A screen attached to the outlet box by a cord will tell you how much energy you’re using, how much CO2 you’re producing and how much running that device would cost you monthly to run (you can use a preprogrammed national average per-kilowatt rate or program in the rate you actually pay from your electric bill.)
• Pros: It’s a good way to audit your home to see how much various devices use when they’re on, off or in sleep mode—it might surprise you how much energy an older PC or a cable box or DVD player use when they’re off. If you want to monitor a particular appliance (say your refrigerator) over time to get a pattern of energy use just leave it plugged in. The cord on this monitor makes it easier to read than other products on the market where the window is built into the part that plugs into the outlet.
• Cons: You can’t measure the energy consumed by lights that work on a wall switch or get a view on how your whole house consumes energy.

Measuring your whole home

• Device: Black & Decker Power Monitor
• Cost: $30 to $80
• How it works: A scanner attaches to the outside of your utility meter and talks to a wireless handheld monitor inside your house. The receiver tells you how your usage and cost change as you turn appliances and lights on and off, open and close the refrigerator and so on.
  If you upgrade and add a WiFi Gateway ($130-$160) you can link link the scanner to your PC and use online services like Google’s Powermeter or Microsoft Hohm to track and analyze your energy use online, from anywhere.
• Pros: Easy to install. Doesn’t require a “smart” utility meter or any wiring work, as is the case with other brands. It’s a relatively simple, affordable way to keep an eye on how your whole house consumes energy.
• Cons: It doesn’t work with all meters. And it might not be usable in multi-unit buildings if the utility meters aren’t accessible or the receiver is out of range from the scanner.

Using the Internet

• Device: ThinkEco Modlet
• Cost: $50 for a starter kit, which includes a USB receiver and one 2-outlet modlet; $45 for each additional modlet
• How it works: We think this is pretty cool. You plug the modlets into your outlets and the USB receiver into your computer. Then you set up an online account through which the devices track your usage from each individual outlet. It’s a great way to track how much energy you consume both when you’re actively using electronics and appliances and when you’re not. Better still, it offers to power down the outlet, effectively “unplugging” your device, at times when you typically aren’t using it, and can turn the power on again when you’re likely to need it. For example, it can “unplug” your cable box and TV while you’re sleeping, but have them ready for you to watch the morning news when you wake up.
• Pros: Simple to install and start using. It allows you to keep costs down on energy sucking appliances without having to constantly remember to plug and unplug them.
• Cons: It’s not on the market yet (they expect to start delivering pre-orders sometime this spring). The cost could add up if you want to use them throughout your home.

Going through your utility

• Device: A “smart” meter, basically a utility meter with a computer chip in it. San Diego Gas & Electric and Reliant Energy and Centerpoint, both inTexas, are among the utilities rolling them out to consumers.
• Cost: Typically there’s no direct cost to you.
• How it works: These meters can relay information back to the utility company or to individual customers via Internet-based applications like Google’s and Microsoft’s (sometimes with a delay) or in real time with an in-home receiver similar to Black & Decker’s. The utility can use the information to find damage more quickly and adjust power delivery to meet shifting demand.
• Pros: Some utilities hope to offer incentives like rates that go up and down with demand, rewarding customers who track their energy consumption and use devices like dishwashers and electric dryers during off-peak hours. Some hope to offer discounts to customers who agree to let the utility ratchet back their power or even remotely turn off  equally “smart” appliances during heat waves and other high-demand periods.
• Cons: You have to wait for your utility to get around to installing the meters and setting up the services and products to support them—and for lots of “smart” appliances to start hitting the market.