You can make better decisions when you know how to zoom out on your electricity usage.
Yesterday I wrote about understanding your electricity on a micro level.
[I still have 1 free watt meter Iโll send to the first person to reply to this email!]
Today I want to show you how to see the bigger picture.
Options for this vary for different utilities, but hereโs what to do if youโre one of the 3.5M+ people on the Oncor grid.
Step 1
Get a copy of your last electric bill and identify 3 numbers.
ESI ID Number
Meter Number
PUCT Number (Can also look this up using your retail providerโs name. Example: TXU is the provider. Their number is 10004.)
Step 2
With this information go to Smart Meter Texas
Create an account
Add a Smart Meter for your home
Note: If youโre denied access, you need to contact Oncor. Someone may have set up an account on your behalf and itโs locking you out.
Step 3
Under Report Type, select Monthly Billing Information
It will default to a 23 or 24 month range. Click Submit Update.
Now you can see the past 2 years of usage.
How is this helpful?
I like to click View in Excel
Youโll get a .xlsx file that you can edit in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets.
Find the row where a new year starts (My start date is 1/19/21, so I go to 1/19/22)
Use the cut/copy function to move those rows and see a month-to-month comparison side by side.
Hereโs were the fun begins! ๐
When you see the different usage between June 2021 and June 2022,
You can draw conclusions that help you see the big picture.
Things like โฆ
So thatโs how much more electricity we used when we hosted the relatives for 2 weeks.
or
Look how much we saved in 2022 after we replaced our old pool pump with a variable speed.
Etc.
For your Smart Homeowner list:
- Set up your Smart Meter account
- If not offered by your utility, call or email them to get two years of usage data
- Spend a little time looking at the numbers and gain insight into your electricity usage.
Best,
Travis
P.S. You can also access daily data and 15 minute interval data (with 1 day delay). You can get creative and do your own experiments. Like โ on a hot day, run your AC like normal from 3:00-4:00. Donโt run it at all from 4:00-5:00. The next day you can compare the 2 hours and get a rough idea of how much your AC uses.