Understand your household energy usages

Housing and transportation are the largest energy usage, energy costs, and toxic and climate emissions of the average US, Oregon, or Washington household, and state-level energy inventories show the same pattern. Fossil fuel companies would like you to believe that simple actions like recycling, shutting off lights, or shifting your diet will mitigate their pollution problem; however, a much more necessary and productive approach is to focus on the transportation and built infrastructure that locks in about 60% of your daily energy usage and emissions.

This example with the Berkeley CoolClimate calculator demonstrates a scenario to cut an average household’s emissions in half:

After electrifying this household’s vehicles and gas appliances, cutting air travel and meat consumption in half, and using 80% clean electricity, the total emissions are cut in half:

The good news is that such actions also cut a household’s energy spending roughly in half!

But of course, all that requires plenty of investments, which are expensive even with the clean-energy rebates nowadays. If you can afford these, you’ll quickly start saving on energy bills. For most households the key strategy is not to immediately invest, but rather to plan for clean infrastructure as it requires replacement—which for both vehicles and energy appliances happens on average every 15-20 years.

·      Your next vehicle should be electric.

·      Your next furnace should be a heat pump.

·      Your next water heater should be an electric heat pump water heater.

·      Your next stove should be an induction cooktop.

·      You should plan to put solar on your roof if you have good sun resource.

Besides lower operating costs, the co-benefits of this electrification include much lower toxic emissions, fewer trips for auto maintenance, more options for energy resilience, keeping energy spending local, and others.

And of course, replacing all these things is not simple to plan even when you can afford them. Even ardent DIYers are wise to involve contractors who are experienced at installing these newer technologies. Multiple new non-profit organizations are now offering help with electrification education, planning, and finding resources:

·      Electrify Oregon provides guidance on lowering your energy bills, improving energy efficiencies, how to plan for electrification, Electrification coaching, and finding local resources.

·      Electrify Now has lots of information on cleaning up your electricity supply, electrifying your home and rides, and spreading the word about electrifying everyone; plus plenty of helpful videos about the latest electric options.

·      Rewiring America is a national powerhouse helping with electrification. They recently launched a Personal Electrification Planner tool.

·      Canopy is also evolving some guides for electrification and planning your future household.