Want to lower your electricity bill? First, you need to know why it’s too high. But that’s not often easy to determine. It’s often difficult to find relevant, up-to-date information about how much electricity you used during each day and when you do have access to that data, it’s often even more difficult to make sense of it.
So we just released a tool to help you get information about your electricity usage that’s up-to-date and easy-to-understand. The new Hero Power app allows you to view your electricity consumption on a monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly basis. That’s right – you can get as specific as how much electricity you used yesterday at 1 pm. With that level of detail, usage data can be a very powerful tool to help you understand your electricity consumption.
How to better analyze your electricity usage date
Data itself isn’t helpful unless you analyze it properly. When looking at your numbers, we suggest first looking at your electricity usage by day for the previous month or week. Notice how your energy changes from the weekday to the weekends. Now, look for any spikes in usage – days when your usage is significantly higher than other days. Do you remember what you were doing on that day to cause your usage to be so high? If something comes to mind, write it down. If nothing comes to mind, check the weather for that day. Hero Power conveniently adds that day’s temperature to its usage graphs so you can see if your energy spiked because it was extremely hot that day.
If you can’t remember why your usage was high and the weather seemed normal, the next step should be to look at that day’s energy consumption by hour. If you’re using Hero Power, simply double click on the day in question and that day’s usage will be displayed by hour. Here, you will be able to see when your usage spiked during the day. To really analyze your usage, you should compare this day to other similar days. So if the day in question is a Tuesday, look at how your usage compared to the previous Tuesday or the next day. Gathering three or four days’ worth of data will allow you to quickly determine when your usage was higher than normal during the day in question, which may help jog your memory as to what you were doing that day to cause the spike.
Comparing your energy use to similar previous time periods is a great way to understand your bill and reduce the amount of electricity you need to power your home. Don’t compare July to February. Compare July 2020 to July 2019. Then, understand what has changed. Did you make energy efficiency improvements? Was the weather hotter or colder this year? Were you on vacation during either time period? Understanding these factors will help you know whether or not your bill usage was normal or if there was an issue.
If all of this sounds like too much work, don’t worry, Hero Power is here to be your energy analyst. In fact, Hero Power will analyze your energy use, the weather, and all of the information you give us about yourself to tell you why your bill was higher than normal and even suggest ways for you to lower it in the future. Some people love looking at data and some people don’t, but Hero Power gives you the tools for either preference.
