How much electricity and money do you save when you raise the temperature on the thermostat? This week I have been focusing on lowering energy bills due to air conditioning because it has been so darned hot outside. First I looked at a few strategies you could employ to lower the demand on your AC, then I helped you figure out how much it costs to run your AC. Finally, we'll look at how much you spend or save when you deviate from the recommended summer setting of 78º F.
The all encompassing green news website, Mother Nature Network (MNN) teamed up with my local utility, Southern Company, to develop a bunch of great web tools to demonstrate energy savings. One of their tools is a programmable thermostat that shows you how much you save or spend when you deviate from the recommended summer setting.
The tool is a great visual demonstration on how your actions can save you money! As I mentioned in an earlier AC post, raising or lowering your thermostat setting means you are raising or lowering how long your AC unit stays on. As you learned in What's a kWh, energy is composed of power (Watt) and time (sec/min/hr). When you lower the amount of time your AC is on - by raising the temperature on your thermostat - you lower how much energy your air conditioning uses!
The bullet points below show the energy savings or higher costs that the MNN tool highlights when you deviate from 78º F:
- 68º F --> 28% more
- 70ºF --> 23% more
- 72ºF --> 16% more
- 74ºF --> 10% more
- 76ºF --> 5% more
- 80ºF --> 6% less
- 82ºF --> 13% less
Now go shed some clothes, turn on a ceiling fan, and raise your thermostat!
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