• mesamune@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    Thanks! Phoenix is close to our weather, although this week is not a good example thank God. Its regularly over 110 most days of the summer. I have one of the watt meters + a raspberry pi that monitors our watts in real time and can tell what appliances take up the most power. The vast majority of the bill is the AC. In winter, we sip power. Our gas is actually more then.

    I’m currently pulling 218 watts right now (fridge/2 laptops/small server/two pis/2 meshtastic devices/one light/ and a host of zombie power devices) and will pull a little over 3kw when the AC is on. And with the tier based system that PGE has, it means months where you do actually use the ac, they jack up the price at the worst possible times. Its closer to 60c per kilowatt hour before fees. And its going up again this year for the 4rth time…

    • IMALlama@lemmy.world
      2·
      6 days ago

      If the biggest portion of your bill is AC and you live in a hot area the only things I could think of are planting some trees if they’ll grow and using a programmable thermostat to shift your usage away from off peek as best you can.

      • mesamune@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        2·
        6 days ago

        Yep that’s an excellent idea.

        There’s also solar ac’s that have started to catch on. I’m taking a look but they seem too new so I’m waiting a bit.