Energy consumption statistic of the day

If you’re an energy conservation geek, or if you just like to save money -- or both, chances are you may have heard of TED.

TED (The Energy Detective) is an electronic device that allows you to monitor your home energy use and, if you have a home solar system, home energy production in real time. Plug it into Google PowerMeter, or another application, and you can watch your home energy consumption and production from anywhere in the world.

TED comes in several different varieties, with the lower end TED priced at $200 and the highest end TED currently going for $456.

We got a mid-range TED packaged with our recently installed 5.59 kW home solar system, the TED 5002-C ($320).

After seven consecutive days with highs in the 90s, including a 101-degree scorcher two days ago, we turned on our central air conditioner for the first time of the summer 2010 last night -- and for the first time since we had a 5.59 kW solar system installed on our Aurora, Colo. roof.

Yikes!

Here’s hoping it’s the last time we turn it on this summer.

Yes, we have central air-conditioning in our home, a modest, three-bedroom, 1,600 foot home in Aurora, Colorado, where, unfortunately, the last decade or so, summers have typically seen long, extreme hot spells, for instance, up to five weeks in a row of daily highs that exceed 90 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as a considerable number of days that top 100.

This means that especially on our second floor temperatures can push the upper 80s, even at night.

Outside air temperatures typically drop fairly quickly to reasonably cool levels on Colorado’s Front Range, even on 90-degree and 100-degree days, usually falling into the 60s or even 50s.

So, why would we “need” air conditioning?

Unfortunately, because our home – and especially our attic -- like pretty much everyone else’s, acts as giant heat sponge during the day. And it takes hours and hours for that heat to radiate back off the house at night.

So, even when the temperatures outside are perfectly comfortable, say, in the mid-to-upper 60s, and even with fans in the windows, it takes hours and hours to cool the interior of the house to something approaching the very comfortable outside temperature.