Cooling Down Summer Energy Use

My goal for the summer: I want to cut our electric usage by 10%. I switched us to “Green Power” a few months ago. But I know the air conditioner is my weakness. I hate being hot, and since I’m an apartment dweller I can’t replace the inefficient wall unit (like the ones in hotels) with a proper EnergyStar air conditioner. The power company reads our meter mid-month; last year’s mid-June reading was 276 kWh. That’s actually not too far above our 2007 average of 240 kWh/month. But I’d still like to get the amount for the summer bills lowered by 10%. (I chose a modest reduction since we traveled a lot last summer, which made our energy use lower than normal.)

Here’s where we’re starting. Meter reading dates:

• June 2007: 276 kWh
• July 2007: 236 kWh
• August 2007: 476 kWh
• September 2007: 232 kWh
  

Summer 2007 TOTAL: 1220 kWh. So we’ll be trying to reduce our bill by 122 kW over the course of the summer months. For now, it’s cool enough to turn off the A/C at night. But that will end soon — if anyone has tips (other than just being hot!), send ’em on over!

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