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 I’ll 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 here’s what to do if you’re 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 provider’s 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 you’re denied access, you need to contact Oncor. Someone may have set up an account on your behalf and it’s 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
You’ll 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.
Here’s were the fun begins! 😉
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 …
So that’s 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 — on a hot day, run your AC like normal from 3:00-4:00. Don’t 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.