TED talk by Catherine Mohr- low energy house!

I quite enjoyed this quick TED talk by Catherine Mohr on how she, in her awesome, nerdy way, built a green home.  Cool.

TED talk: Catherine Mohr builds green:  click here

It's been a while... But I've got our 2012 DATA!

I have finally tabulated a years worth of energy utility (energy) consumption, PV production and the fun part, Net electricity (energy) use.  We had hoped that our PV system would have provided 40% to 50% of our needs, based on having the amount of PV (4.8 kW), and expecting an average weather year for temperature and sunny days.

It did not.

Sigh.

So here are the numbers:

Total Utility Electrical Use (how much we bought from our utility company): 12,683 kWh

Total PV Generation of our grid-tied system: 5,352 kWh

Total PV power returned to the grid (excess power we did not need): 2,056 kWh

Net Beverly Heights house consumption: 15,978 kWh.

So, we were at 33% in chasing net zero, for 2012.

And we had a fairly mild, sunny year.

Not this like year~ where our winter has already been pretty brutal on the lack of sun and a good number of cold days.  If it is sunny, regardless of temperature, our house IS comfortable, heating up passively to over 20 C. The combination of no sunny days and cold weather really hurts- as we need to burn a lot of wood and/or turn on our electric heaters to keep comfortable.

But the good news is we consumed far less than our Hot2000 modelled consumption for space heating, hot water and appliance loads which predicted the total at 17,260 kWh.

And we consumed significantly less than a typical home that is the same square footage: 27,595 kWh, or 42% less!

In due course, we would like to add more PV and get to net zero. The hard part is known when we actually see/get an average weather year.