What was meant to be an evaluation session with a facilitator got me going. I’d heard about this joint ACT/TDC initiative, My Electricity. The session got me thinking about what and how much electricity I was using and where. I’m not a numbers person and don’t really like to use gadgets to measure things, but the session got me interested, it was a bit like a detective game.

I managed to do enough during the session to practice the basics. I wanted to give feedback, so I got going soon after the session. Getting help from ACT when I got stuck made it really easy to measure things using the tool they lent me and the smart meter app I already had but never understood.

I’m over the moon that I managed to quickly find about 79 kWh of saving in the first month. I’m especially pleased with that as there isn’t anything significantly different about the way we led our lives compared to before, apart from:

• Changing underfloor heating in kitchen to come on 2 hours later on weekday mornings.
• Ensuring we run washing machine when sun is shining and therefore using solar.
• Much more conscious of switching lights off when not in a room. 

I also found electrical items I’d been stressing about, my fridge freezer, turned out to be quite efficient. I cleaned it instead of buying a new one.

Ongoing, the changes I have made require no further input or time commitment, they were one-off easy and quick to implement. The energy monitor is easy to use and not a big time commitment. 

Next will be filling in the My Electricity on-line tool (app), this will help me to be a bit more systematic to find out where else I can cut out unnecessary consumption. When I first heard about My Electricity I thought it’ll be daunting and boring, it turns out to be fun and rewarding. Must make sure I watch screens other than my electricity app!