Clean Energy Works – Evaluation

It’s hard to believe, but it’s already been over a year since we finished our home energy efficiency upgrades through the Clean Energy Works pilot program. Since I’ve written on our experience pretty extensively, I want to evaluate the true energy and cost savings of the program now that I have a full year of bills to compare. 


(See previous posts: Part 1Part 2Part 3Initial EvaluationPoster Family)


For our natural gas use, from May to May, we used 54.56 Therms per month, compared to 70.49 Therms in the previous 13 months, which is a 22.6% reduction in energy use. This is despite the fact that we nearly froze here this May…truly I don’t remember ever keeping the heat on that long! While I’m pretty satisfied with those results, I am a bit perplexed by how the estimate of Therms saved in the bid is so much less in real life…they had projected 433 Therms saved, but in the first year it was only 207 Therms…I’ll have to check with our contractor to see if he knows why it’s lower.


As mentioned in the “initial evaluation” post, our previous natural gas bill had been $97. After the Clean Energy Works loan, it went up to $146.24. We are still on the even bill pay, so it’s taking a bit to catch up, but our new average for the past 14 months is $105, which includes the loan fee of $49.24. For the comfort factor alone, the $8 extra would be worth it. In the long run, we can expect to see our natural gas bill drop to $55 for an annual savings of about $500 a year.


Have you increased your energy efficiency and reduced your utility bills?


~*~*~*~*~*~ 
Sustainable Family Finances 
The story of a family creating an abundant and sustainable life.

One thought on “Clean Energy Works – Evaluation

  1. Financial Independence

    What I did I calculated our family finances over last three years and split them into various categories.

    It is really presents about 2300 USD a year for all the utility bills we are paying and 1400 USD for the gas.

    Does it really worth breaking balls over trying to save 10%? If yes, where would you stop?
    In western europe it is quite common when you have to crawl into living room (you can not stand there) – this is to reduce
    volume of air to be heated. People are walking in sweaters – to save money on heating and living in a small houses.

    Yes, of course, every penny counts on your way to financial independence, but where would you stop?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*