Meeting the Challenges of Energy Sustainability
Tools for wise decisions in selecting and managing appliances in the IoT era
How much energy do my appliances use? Is my lifestyle sustainable for me? What should I change?
We are all increasingly preoccupied by these questions as the environmental situation worsens and energy costs rise. But what tools are there to help us navigate these concerns and make wise decisions?
Monitoring the real consumption of an appliance in use is a key to making sound decisions about how to use appliances, when to repair them or even replace them. All of this occurs before you ever go to a store and look at an energy efficiency rating label.
Aware but Unarmed
Throughout the European Union, new appliances are rated for their consumption. In some countries, meters for home electrical installations also provide "estimates" of consumption by category: heating, cooling, hot water, etc. But these indications are too far removed from our specific use and daily decisions about how to use our appliances.
What do different appliances consume in their different modes? What is the impact of my clothes washer's ECO mode? What about the consumption of my old or used appliances?
The tools that are in place to help us do encourage awareness, but leave us disarmed in daily decisions about how we use and maintain appliances.
Real-Time Data Inspires Good Behavior
Knowing how our appliances perform and how we use them are crucial to good use and purchasing decisions. For example... Why would you replace a rarely used oven instead of an old water heater that contributes twenty times more to annual household electricity consumption. Knowing is the key to good decisions.
What about appliance energy-saving modes? Do we use them? Knowing and seeing what the differences are between the consumption of different modes of operation is the key to using them.
In both situations, getting correct, visual, real-time data can help us set priorities and make meaningful, durable changes in our homes and our behavior.