Green Leaf Report

I just attended a one-day solar seminar, taught by a gentleman who works on various aspects of the California Energy Commission’s Renewable Energy programs.  I enjoyed it; I didn’t know what I didn’t know about net metering and grid-connected solar. But one of the most eye opening discussions was the household wattage analysis. Before we discussed provisioning our solar systems, we reviewed ways of reducing household power consumption to ensure the solar system would be as affordable as possible.

The guy sitting next to me got pretty mad at the amount of time we
spent talking about various types of light bulbs, but I had no idea an
alarm clock can end up using more monthly electricity than some
refrigerators.  Who ever takes the time to calculate that sort of
thing?  Well, now I do, and I’ve been wandering around my house all
day unplugging things and looking for the voltage/amperage ratings.
It’s like being aware of blinking: suddenly you can’t stop thinking
about how much you want to blink. Now all I want to do is stop the electric vampires...