Comments on: Utilities Guilt Customers into Energy Efficiency with Frowny Faces http://earthfirst.com/utilities-guilt-customers-into-energy-efficiency-with-frowny-faces/ A Sharp Eye -- With a Green Edge Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:33:14 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Robin Green http://earthfirst.com/utilities-guilt-customers-into-energy-efficiency-with-frowny-faces/comment-page-1/#comment-6081 Robin Green Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:53:21 +0000 http://earthfirst.com/?p=3442#comment-6081 Any kind of measured feedback of your (and others') energy use is helpful. Most of my neighbors are shocked when I tell them what my energy bill is - about a quarter of what they pay for electricity, even though I'm buying more expensive, green electricity, and about half what they pay for natural gas. They pay way more - because they haven't taken the aggressive energy efficiency measures I have. When they hear how little I pay for utilities, it opens their eyes to the benefits of saving energy, and in several cases I've seen people take on some energy-saving actions (retrofit, energy audit, extra insulation, new energy efficient lights) because they realized they were using way more than one of their neighbors. So I am all for this. If you don't know how much could be saved (by seeing what some of your more energy-conscious neighbors are saving) you won't even realize it's worth striving for. Any kind of measured feedback of your (and others’) energy use is helpful. Most of my neighbors are shocked when I tell them what my energy bill is – about a quarter of what they pay for electricity, even though I’m buying more expensive, green electricity, and about half what they pay for natural gas. They pay way more – because they haven’t taken the aggressive energy efficiency measures I have. When they hear how little I pay for utilities, it opens their eyes to the benefits of saving energy, and in several cases I’ve seen people take on some energy-saving actions (retrofit, energy audit, extra insulation, new energy efficient lights) because they realized they were using way more than one of their neighbors.

So I am all for this. If you don’t know how much could be saved (by seeing what some of your more energy-conscious neighbors are saving) you won’t even realize it’s worth striving for.

]]>