Energy Conservation in Alaska: What Worked? What Did Not?
Friday, 8th August 2008 (by J.D.)This article is about Ask the Readers, Frugality, House and Home, Money Hacks, Real-Life
Last April, Dan wrote to ask GRS readers for help with a sudden energy crisis. Because of a natural disaster, electricity costs in Juneau, Alaska jumped from $0.11 per kilowatt-hour to $0.53 per kilowatt-hour. In this follow-up, Dan explains how his family coped with high energy costs.
It’s been over three months since an avalanche knocked out our hydropower supply in Juneau. At that time, Get Rich Slowly readers provided plenty of great comments and potential solutions. Unfortunately, we rarely get sunny days here in Southeast Alaska because it rains or snows about 200 days a year. Thus, we couldn’t make use of the oft-recommended solar energy.
The two areas in which we drastically cut back were:
- Our use of electric heat
- Our use of hot water
In fact, we turned off our electric heat completely after the avalanche. The temperatures were in the forties, so our house was chilly and uncomfortable for a month. We piled on the layers and tried to keep warm.
We also took shorter showers and fewer baths. Before the avalanche, I didn’t realize how much hot water we were using. We also unplugged appliances like coffee pots, clocks, and so on. (Though I’m not sure if that helped much.) Our consumption went down over 50%. The reduced water consumption is sustainable, but the electric heat will need to be turned back on eventually.
I’ve attached a few scans from our electricity bill. The avalanche occurred on April 16th, so the April bill includes the start of our conservation. We reduced from 1214 KWH in April to 545 KWH the next month.
March usage: 43.00 KWH per day
April usage: 39.00 KWH per day
May usage: 18.00 KWH per day, down 40% from 2007!
A lot of people around town bought candles. I thought this opened a new can of worms because of the fire hazard. (Plus candles are expensive!) A 100-Watt equivalent CFL is only going to burn 10 watts per hour. It would require approximately 100 hours of use to use up a KWH, and that would only cost $.53. We already had CFL lights before the disaster, so this couldn’t be a source of savings for us.
The hydropower was restored about six weeks after the avalanche. Most places around town have returned to their normal ways, but some offices (our office included) still have the lights out. We got accustomed to working without overhead lighting. We tried turning it on one day, but it was too bright.
There was a lot of attention on our story. A Korean television station even came to Juneau to interview people on how they conserved. Here are some media links:
- NPR: After avalanche, Juneau races to conserve power
- NPR: Juneau goes into conservation overdrive
- NPR: Juneau power crisis brings stark savings measures
- The New York Times: A city cooler and dimmer and, oh, proving a point
- The New York Times: Turning the power back on in Juneau
We’re starting to save for future disasters. The electric company repaired the transmission lines, but left them in the same place as before the avalanche. While it was a quick repair, we may have more months like these in the springs to come.
Thanks to Dan for providing this follow-up. If there’s a past GRS story you’d like an update on, please let me know.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:59 am
It is always amazing to me how crisis-like situations can reveal new things to us. He would have never known that he could cut his energy usage in half unless he was put to the test. Now he knows and has the confidence that he can endure that because he already has…
August 8th, 2008 at 6:53 am
In contrast to the previous poster, what amazes me is how much energy the average household uses. Congrats to the poster on reducing electricity usage by over 50%, and further congratulations for trying to keep those reductions now that the crisis is over.
I live in Ontario, Canada where winters are pretty tough, though perhaps not as tough as in Alaska
I live in a 2-person, 150 square meter home with gas heating. Our electricity usage is 1850kWh PER YEAR. In winter, usage is higher due to the furnace fan motor, so in summer we sometimes have months around the 100kWh mark. When I read that the average NA home uses 10000kWh per year, I just shake my head.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:03 am
As unfortunate as this situation is, it just shows us the tremendous reliance we have for “on-grid” power. With natural disasters occurring more frequently and with greater impact we all need to consider back-up alternative energy sources (wind, solar, gas or diesel powered generators) for power. I would agree with you about not using the candles. We were fortunate to survive a major house fire caused by an electrical outlet. The risk is not worth the reward.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:09 am
It is pretty amazing how people cope in different situations. We take our conveniences for granted.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:17 am
For heat, I bet the Canadian poster isn’t using electricity, as people in Juneau do.
Of course, many of them use resistive heat strips instead of a heat pump (the latter is more than 100% efficient)
There are cold climate heat pumps available that work down to -15 F, but you’ll need ductwork.
Or, install through the wall gas-fired heaters in critical rooms that *must* have heat - models are available that don’t use any electricity.
Of course, the above assumes you can get natural gas or propane for a reasonable cost.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:24 am
What are people doing about heating their homes this coming winter. I have a fireplace that I wanted to put an insert in but I don’t have the clearances for it. My oil furnace looks to be my only option and honestly it will break me this year. I have a 1 year old as well so I can’t set the thermostat too low. My home value is about $40K below my mortgage value now so I can’t take a loan to make any kind of improvements, I feel pretty out of luck.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:50 am
I often leave the lights off during the afternoons in my west-facing office. My coworkers think I’m crazy, but why use light when it is already so bright?
Kudos for finding creative ways to respond to the disaster.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:06 am
I also live in Alaska, but am up in Anchorage, so I didn’t experience the ultra-high energy prices that Juneau had. While it is inspiring that the entire city was able to buckle down and reduce their energy consumption in a time of need, it should also be noted that once their regular power was restored (and prices went back to normal), energy usage shot right back up to a level near what it had been previously.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:06 am
I might sound a bit naive here, but I also have never understood how people end up using SO much electricity. Right now in my two bedroom apartment we are using anywhere from 90 to 115 kwh per month. When I used to rent a house (probably around 750 sq feet) where I payed ALL utilities we were using about 145kwh per month on average, with a winter time high of 189 kwh. Our gas cost per month was between $35 and $50, maybe this made up for it?
I don’t feel I go without, I don’t sit shivering in the dark, I take moderately long showers, I don’t unplug all the machines in the house. It kind of scares me when I think about buying a house to think my electricity usage could jump so much. Can anyone explain to me where all this usage comes from? There are only two people in my household right now, I guess this is also a factor?
August 8th, 2008 at 8:29 am
@Dana #8 - Sounds like we’re in the same boat. I also don’t really feel like we go without, though we already make use of a lot of the tips in the article that was linked above. As to how can the average be so high, see which side of each of the following you fall into:
- Leave lights on when you leave the room vs. shut them off
- Use incandescent light bulbs vs. CFLs
- Air condition your house in summer until it’s so cold you can see your breath vs. avoid air conditioning whenever possible
- Heat your house until you can wear t-shirts in winter vs. heat your house to a reasonable level (19 deg C in winter for me in Ontario)
- Run multiple small loads of laundry per week vs. run a load only when you have to
- Use a dryer for an hour on high heat vs. dry your clothes on a line, on a rack, or just for less time in the dryer
- Use lots of appliances like TVs, computers, etc. vs. activities like reading (I don’t own or miss a TV)
- Have more than one fridge/freezer that is hardly used vs. make do with a single fridge/freezer
- Use the oven to cook meals vs microwave/bbq/toaster oven/stove
- Use a dishwasher with the electric dryer setting on vs. wash dishes by hand
- Use energy hogs like electric pool heaters vs. not
I doubt you have to worry about “It kind of scares me when I think about buying a house to think my electricity usage could jump so much”. If you conserve now, you’ll likely conserve later. There are normally two people in my home as well. Last time we went on vacation for a month, my brother in law house sat for us. He, a single person, used 3x as much power as us. It’s a combination of your habits and the house (insulation, etc.) but I’d put a lot more of the blame/credit on habits.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Dana, that’s an amazing achievement to use so little power. That’s roughly the monthly equivalent of 4 cable boxes which draw ~30Watts each when plugged in 24/7 whether turned on or off.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:44 am
All of the posters who have posted wondering how people can be using so much electricity have one thing in common, gas heat. If you look at a breakdown of the top energy users in the common north american home, electric heating and cooling is number one by far, followed by water heating and refrigeration. In many areas of the US, gas is not an option. I live in the southeast and many homes here are all electric, no gas infrastructure is available. The places in my home town that do have gas available tend to be the older parts of town, they just don’t seem to be building gas lines to newer developed areas.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:57 am
@Dana
Most of the increased usage in a house comes from phantom loads. In a house you usually have more appliances, tvs, etc. Small increases can add up.
I am Juneau as well. We have a house and very young children, so turning off all of the heat wasn’t an option. Luckily, the immediate days after the avalanche, we did have some sun, so we closed up the house and let the sun heat the house. It was a bit warm some evenings, but we made it through.
We already didn’t use a clothes dryer because we don’t like how it treats our clothes. We did change how we wash our dishes. We had a few electronic cat related items that were unplugged.
The biggest impact on our usage occurred when we shut things down at the breaker. That saved us some considerable kwh. We have an HVAC system in our home and it runs 24/7. We turned it off at the breaker when we left the house. We left most rooms switched off at the breaker all the time.
So, our normal usage rate during that time of year was around 600 kwh. That would have left us with a $300 bill. Our monthly usage during the crisis was around 325 kwh and our bill was $175. I think we did ok.
Right after our rates went down again we went on a road trip. During that time we shut down everything, including the water heater. We left the refrigerator and the DVR running. Priorities, no?
We have decided to save for an alternative energy source. We do not have a consistent supply of sun, so solar is really cost prohibitive. But we do have some wind and maybe enough water to supply us with some alternatives. (We do live in a temperate rainforest, but the rain can be sporadic. We’ll talk to a specialist when the time comes.) We are buying a weather station and are going to track the weather until we have saved enough money for something. By then we will have a better idea of what we can do at our house.
Thanks for everyone’s good thoughts and advice!
August 8th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I live in the US, gas here is relatively expensive but I think its a bit more efficient for heating. I guess in response to Victor, I think you kind of cleared it up for me, but somehow I guess I just can’t imagine that all those things can really add up to 1000 kwh difference. We have steam heat from radiators which is run with a gas boiler and is very warm, but I don’t pay for it, my landlord does.
-We always shut lights off when not in the room.
-We use “normal” light bulbs.
-We don’t own an air conditioner, but we also don’t live in a very hot region. We use a fan.
- Already mentioned the steam heat we don’t pay for. But in our old house we had a heat pump in one room and all the other rooms were heated by a portable kerosene heater or an electric space heater. We had heated carpets and an electric blanket which we used for real cold nights. We were living abroad and this method was the norm.
- We go to a laundry mat to wash clothing and hang our wet clothes
- We have two TVs, one computer. We use at least the TV and the computer everyday for a few hours.
- Only one fridge
- We do mostly stove-top cooking on halogen burners… I don’t know if this is more or less efficient than regular burners but the heat is way easier to control.
- Don’t have a dishwasher or a pool. I do use a hairdryer for about 5-10 minutes everyday!
That’s interesting. I wonder if we can maintain the same habits if and when we do buy a home.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:18 am
@Dave
>My oil furnace looks to be my only option >and honestly it will break me this year. I >have a 1 year old as well so I can’t set >the thermostat too low.
Dave,
If you don’t have a lot of available money to pay someone else you just need to be more creative and do the work yourself! I can think of a few ideas:
Apply Caulk/weather strip so that there are no holes around your doors/windows. This will save you in summer as well as winter. So do it now!
You could get a small electrical space heater to warm the baby’s room and keep the rest of the house far colder.
You could also try to improve the insulation of your windows by making removable window covering. I bet you could find a cheap or even free foam mattress on craigslist. You then cut it up to fit your windows. Put the coverings in place at night to help keep the heat in.
I bet you could come up with more ideas by looking around your house… Also, are there other monthly expenses you could cut down or sacrifice to help fund the heating bills? For example you could switch from cable TV to rabbit ears.
-Rick Francis
August 8th, 2008 at 10:07 am
“I might sound a bit naive here, but I also have never understood how people end up using SO much electricity. Right now in my two bedroom apartment we are using anywhere from 90 to 115 kwh per month.”
I’ve only recently started paying my own power bill, so I’m not sure what winter usage will look like, but until last month my consumption was about 150 kwh a month. That doubled to 314 for last month’s bill. During summer, though, consumption is really influenced by where you live and what kind of work you do. My work allows me to work from home frequently, so instead of using the AC at the office I used the AC at home. And living in California’s central valley region, I faced 100+ degree temperatures for much of the previous month. I try to be conservative with my AC and, when outside temps allow, cool my apartment by opening doors and windows, but sometimes CA weather makes AC a necessity. So that’s where most of my usage comes from.
Reducing light usage and such is a good idea, but it really won’t save that much money. Even regular non-fluorescent bulbs don’t consume that much energy. And surprising as it may sound, even appliances like your refrigerator tend to be pretty energy efficient. The biggest consumers will usually be your dryer, microwave, and AC. Of course, since you don’t usually run a microwave for extended periods of time, fingers really only get pointed at the other two appliances.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:27 am
It’s amazing how myopic the “personal finance” and “frugal” community can be. A blog post and 16 comments about ways to save nickels and dimes, and not one suggests the obvious, most responsible course of action - leave Alaska!
Seriously, if your area of the world is subject to regular, natural occurances that can quintuple the price of energy, that’s a pretty obvious signal that your community is unsustainable.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:34 am
@ Pieter Friedrich: “Reducing light usage and such is a good idea, but it really won’t save that much money. Even regular non-fluorescent bulbs don’t consume that much energy.”
As I mentioned, my summer usage (in my detached 150sq meter home with 2 people) has reached as low as about 100kWh per month. In a 31 day month, with 24 hours in a day, that’s the equivalent of running a 134W appliance 24 hours a day. And that’s it.
How are those dozen 60W or even 100W bulbs looking now?
August 8th, 2008 at 10:35 am
@Corey “not one suggests the obvious, most responsible course of action - leave Alaska!”
The original poster was not subject to “regular, natural occurances that can quintuple the price of energy”. This was a freak occurence and they were looking for immediate solutions.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Victor, something makes me think that avalanches aren’t too uncommon in a place like Alaska.
In any case, the energy expenditures required to live in an inhospitable climate like Alaska are clearly not sustainable.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:10 am
@Corey - I agree that living a ‘Western’ lifestyle in certain climates is not really sustainable. In fact, living a ‘Western’ lifestyle anywhere is not sustainable. On the other hand, the Inuit are doing just fine…
While I agree that avalanches are likely common, having the entire power system of Juneau knocked out and having to resort to diesel generators for 3 months is uncommon.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:26 am
I’ve lived in a 2 bedroom apartment, and have so far lived in my house for over 7 years. My electricity costs in the apartment were at least than half the cost of my house electricity. Our power bill was about $20 on average, but we paid $600/month in rent. See where this is going?
If you think about it, it’s easy to understand how that’s possible, even using the same habits.
Apartment had steam heat, which the landlord paid for along with the hot water costs. We didn’t directly pay the electricity for steam heat, water pump, water heater for the shower/clothes washer.
You pay for those indirectly with your monthly rent. Make no mistake, it’s not free. The landlord sure isn’t going to pay for it out of his pocket, out of the “Goodness of their Heart”. They charge enough rent to cover that cost.
Also, a house is usually larger than an apartment. So there are more lights to light, even if they’re CFL, more space to heat/cool, etc.
I live in the Canadian prairies, hot summers and cold winters. I’ve kept track of the power bills each month for 7 years, and in winter they go up by $20-$30, but go down in the summer by the same amount. Generally, it’s been a $60 monthly average power bill.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I enjoy reading the comments on these types of posts, and seeing different people’s attitudes towards energy usage. Personally, when I live in my house alone, I use just over 100 kWh / month of electricy. I do have gas heating. But when I have roommates, that usage ballons to 300 or 400 kWh. My roommates just aren’t as energy conscious as I am. And I feel too much like a stickler or a stingy landlord if I were to ask them to be more careful. For instance, my roommate has been running his ceiling fan 24 hours a day. I just calculated that costs about $3.50 - $4.00 a month. Is it worth asking him to turn it off and maybe save some electricy? It’s freakin’ $3 bucks. Deal with it!
But the costs do add up. I still amke more in rent, so it’s still worth it. But I think as energy costs continue to rise, people will become more aware of their own energy usage. We might like to cool the house in the summer to 74 degrees, but it’s expensive to do that. And people have lived for thousands or millions of years without AC. I think we can manage now to allow the indoor temperatures to fluctuate just a little bit more.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Good job on saving on what you can, but solar is not the only option. Try boosting your energy with personal wind turbines (which you can Google). If there is rain, there is wind!
August 8th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
This is a fascinating discussion. Folks get an aggregate electricity bill so we have no idea how much electricity specific appliances use - if they each had a dial, I’m sure we’d be a lot smarter about energy. (In contrast, we put gas in to the car and we KNOW what we’re consuming.)
I work for a wonderful initiative, http://www.greenmicrofinance.org whose mission is to bring green, renewable energy to the world’s 1.8 inhabitants who have no access to grid electricity. They are forced to use candles (made of paraffin, a petroleum product, and as you point out, DANGEROUS), or kerosene, also a fossil fuel,which causes a great deal of respiratory disease. Also buying these in small quantities in remote locations is terribly expensive. Not like they can drive to Costco.
Here’s the kicker. When a family goes solar and adds just one panel, they can have lights at night and listen to a radio or charge a cell phone. It’s a huge upgrade and it lowers their outlay enough to begin to spend the money saved on fossil fuels on more food or education for their children.
Here’s the comparison. They generate & consume on average 73 kWHs, and the average american household uses 8900, per year. So each of us uses about as much as 122 developing world households. Think of how much difference our waste could make, if we could somehow send it abroad!
August 8th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
@Corey
“not one suggests the obvious, most responsible course of action - leave Alaska!”
Every area has their reoccurring natural disasters. Earthquakes, mudslides, floods, and avalanches are just a part of life. If you suggest we leave somewhere because something bad happened, where would we go?
Honestly, avalanches have taken down our power lines before, this was a known problem. However, last time it happened, diesel wasn’t so expensive, so not many heard about it. The town probably didn’t bat an eye. This time it’s cost prohibitive, so everyone went nuts.
On the plus side, did anyone hear about the energy rebate attached to our permanent fund this year? In case anyone was wondering, the yearly permanent fund does not make up for the increased cost of living here.
August 9th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Our house in the Philippines uses a tankless water heater for the shower. The water is heated by electricity only on demand, rather than heated over and over again whenever the water in a tank gets cold like our house in the US. This cost about $100 to install and makes the shower much nicer than with cold city water.
Units for the whole house are available in the US, but cost (IIRC) several thousand dollars. It would take several years of savings to amortize the cost.
We have a gas water heater in the attic here in Houston, TX, rather than electricity. I don’t like having the gas line running into the house (I haven’t found where to turn it off yet were we to evacuate for hurricanes.) But if we ever lose power due to a hurricane in the winter ;);) (out of season), I guess it would be nice to stay warm without electricity. Since the lowest monthly average low temperature is only 41 degF, the water heaters days may be numbered.
August 12th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Another Juneau-ite here, since 1976. I was thinking about the post that suggested moving for sustainability reasons.
I’d have to say that from my perspective, our electricity is pretty sustainable - yep, we lose it from time to time (mainly due to wind, not avalanche), but it’s usually reliable.
To me, the thing that makes so many communities questionable is food: there’s no way we could grow enough of it here to feed 30K+ people a Western diet. And, with salmon stocks down, I wonder if the entire region could feed 75K people on what’s available naturally.
OH - and our energy consumption went from about 12 KWH/day to 5 (oil fired boiler). We’re holding pretty steady, but some of the change isn’t long-term sustainable. Easy changes we’ve maintained: plug everything optional (TV, wireless router, phone) into power strips and check every night to be sure all power strips were off; put the bird lights on a timer, change to CFLs, and turn off the darned lights when you leave the room!
In an effort to reduce our energy costs, ironically, we’ll be installing an electric hot water heater for on-demand HW. Currently our boiler fires every time we turn the water on (hot or cold) due to the way it’s plumbed.
August 12th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
@mimms - I think you may be confusing the word ’sustainable’ with reliabily when you say “I’d have to say that from my perspective, our electricity is pretty sustainable - yep, we lose it from time to time (mainly due to wind, not avalanche), but it’s usually reliable.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability
Sustainability, at least in terms of environmentalism, means that a system has the ability to last indefinitely, not in the sense of reliability, but in the sense that it doesn’t use more than can be replenished naturally, where ‘it’ is energy, food, water, air, etc.
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:35 am
Wind power is the best viable solution to alternitive energy in Juneau, alaska.
also cheeper too make a wind turbine yourself. you-tube it and check it out. good quality battery bank. your good to go. I am a state of alaska jurneyman electrician by the way =D currently living in texas for the winter lol