by Jennifer L. Johnson
To Adam Platto, conserving energy is as easy as opening a window. He has slept with his window open at night - instead of running the air conditioning - since the hottest stretch of summer passed.
"I try to be conscious of consumption," Platto said.
To conserve energy, he runs appliances like the dishwasher and dryer during off-peak hours and turns up the thermostat during the day when no one is home.
He also unplugs his cell phone and shaver chargers when they're not in use.
Platto doesn't know it, but he's killing vampires.
Electronic devices suck power from the outlet even when the machine is turned off, and energy experts are starting to point to that so-called "vampire load" as the next place to save energy.
"Anything that lights up or has a clock on it - like a VCR - is drawing power," said Bonnie Jones, public relations director for Jackson Electric Membership Corp. "Even though your computer is in sleep mode, it's costing you money."
Libraries across the state now allow patrons to check out the Kill A Watt Energy Detector Toolkit and calculate the annual costs of running home appliances.
The hand-sized gadget is plugged in between the outlet and any appliance or power cord and measures how much energy the machine uses. Officials with the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority and the library system hope curious people like Platto visit their local libraries to take advantage of the detector, which may encourage Georgians to decrease their energy use.
"That's genius," said Platto, who moved to Athens over the summer. "Now that I know that they have this thing, I'm going to go get a library card just out of curiosity."
To Platto, saving money is a side-benefit to conserving, but for other people it's the main goal.
Sean Watson doesn't pay any attention to his carbon footprint, but he'll conserve if he sees the cost benefit. (He also recycles, just because.)
"I'm pretty loaded up on energy-saving tips because of friends who are into it," said Watson, 24. "But we try to turn lights and other things off because we're also very poor."
Since taking steps to reduce the cost of powering their apartment, Watson and his roommates have seen their electric bill drop from about $150 a month to $100. He attributes the savings to learning about vampire load.
Watson and his roommates now use a power-strip for their TV and gaming systems that can be switched off easily, and unplug any appliance they don't use every day.
The library's Kill A Watt detectors come with energy-saving tips, operating instructions and directions to download the "appliance efficiency tracker" from www.gefa.org. The tracker is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet formatted to calculate the results with the aid of your monthly electric bill.
"Heating, cooling and water-heating are the majority of your power bill," Jones said. "People need to be measuring how much power their HVAC system is using, their water-heaters and washers, dryers, refrigerators and freezers, if they have them."
Most people who have borrowed the Kill A Watt detectors read about the idea in newsletters from the library or Jackson EMC.
A woman whose husband had wondered for years about how much energy it took to operate their stove recently came in to borrow a detector, said Mazie Bowen, a librarian at the Athens-Clarke County Library.
"He was really excited to find out," Bowen said.
The detector measures the energy efficiency of individual appliances by the kilowatt-hour and, with the help of the spreadsheet, estimates the cost of operating the appliance by the hour, day, week, month and year.
"It's so much different when you can see it, when it's right there in your face," Platto said.
The three big-ticket energy-consumers - refrigerators, freezers and dishwashers - can cost several hundred dollars a year to operate. Smaller items like toasters, blenders and cell phone chargers combined can use as much power to run as your refrigerator.
"Everyone talks about creating renewable sources of energy," Platto said. "But why don't we just conserve what we have?"
Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Monday, September 28, 2009
this is really informative.
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