A New Perspective From HB Woodlawn

Hi everyone!  First, I'm Ashley and I am a sophomore at HB Woodlawn. I am working at Fresh AIRE as part of an internship for school credit, but I am also using this opportunity as my Gold Award for Girl Scouts-not to mention I'm learning all sorts of new things about energy! 

Last night, I made an account on www.earthaid.net, it is a website that helps track energy consumption.  All I had to do was look up our home account information at Washington Gas and Dominion Power, and it graphs your usage, shows you your carbon footprint and gives tips on how to reduce consumption.

 

I found that my family used a lot more electricity in the dog days of August than in May of last year-we probably had the air-conditioning running 24/7!   EarthAid.net is very helpful to reduce your energy usage and you can earn coupons on items and services. 

I also found out about the Kill-A-Watt meters that are availabe at all Arlington libraries. You can check out these meters and bring them home to measure how much energy household items use. I plugged one into my television last night and found it used about 125 watts while on and 10 watts when off.  It just goes to show you how much energy appliances use even when they are off!

Let's do an example. You have an old TV that uses 10 watts of standby power even when it's off.   Here is an estimate of the cost:

• 10 watts x 24 hours/day x 30.44 days/mo. = 7306 watt-hours
• 7306 watt-hours = 7.3 kWh
• 7.3 kWh x 9¢ = $7.88 a year wasted on one television

So one 10-watt TV isn't gonna put you in the poorhouse any time soon.  But you likely have many devices at home, some devices use even more than 10 watts. When you add them all up you may be spending lots of money on devices that are supposed to be off.

 

Learn more about kill-a-watt meters and how to stop wasting money and electricity HERE!

 

Check out Fresh AIRE's webpage, like the Facebook page and spread the word about all the Arlington is doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions!