Interactive Tools

01: Electric Bill Rates Breakdown

02: Climate Visualizer

03: Energy Use Visualizer & Planner

How to Use Energy Calculator

Provided here are 3 interactive tools:

1. Electric Bill Rates Overview

2. Climate Overview

3. Energy Consumed Calculator

Electric Bill Rates Overview, Shows the break down of your Bill

The Electric Rates Overview is to see how the local electric company breaks your bill down, and for you to see how rates have changed over time, and to visual how they are going to increase over the future. Most utility grid providers actually make the bulk of their electricity burning fuel, so if the price of fuel is shooting up like it has over the past couple of years, so has the price of electricity. And since fossil fuel is a finite resource that gets more rare and valuable as it gets used up, it's likely to keep going up at an astronomical rate.

Everything either runs directly on combustible fuel or runs on electricity generated by combustible fuel, so as long as our economic system runs on combustion, the price of everything is going to keep going up. If you generate your own electricity with solar power, you decouple from this paradigm and you shield yourself from this precarious economic dependency.

We want normal people to be able to decouple from needing combustion in their own life, but all the daily goods and products that we use on a daily basis come from somewhere else and needs to be delivered. For our economy to be stabilized we also need for electric vehicle based shipping to become the norm, and for the electricity that they run on to be non-combustion based, and preferably running on solar, which is clean, doesn't wear out, doesn't need maintenance, and doesn't need a huge facility for the economies of scale to make it practical and doesn't specialized personnel to run. Solar is by far the best overall option to fuel our economy but at this point, anything other than combustion would be preferable and shield us from the fuel market.

The Climate Overview Tool, shows how the local weather and climate change throughout the year.

1. The bright yellow sun hours line shows the total radiance reaching the earth from the sun, and corresponds with the length of the days of the year.

2. The peach colored peak sun hours line is the total amount of sunlight hitting the ground at an intensity of at least 1,000 watts per meter squared. The practical definition is that the peak sun hours is the total radiance, minus the amount of cloud cover in that month.

3. The light grey line represent the total amount of cloudy days in a month, and slightly influences the amount of usable sunlight hitting the ground.

4. The dark grey line represents the total amount of days with heavy cloud cover, which moderately influences the amount of usable sunlight hitting the ground.

5. The bright blue rain inches line demonstrates the amount of rain fall in inches hitting the ground per month. This does not correspond very much to the actual radiance hitting the ground as the actual cloud cover does.

6. The average temperature has an extremely strong influence on how much electricity is used on air conditioning. At least here in south FL, it can easily be as much as 50% of a person's bill! Reducing your HVAC load is usually the most the most sure-fire way of reducing your electrical use.

The Energy Use Visualizer helps you:

• set reduction goals

• see your energy usage

• see what a solar power system can do

The point of this is to get a better visual representation of your energy usage and set reduction goals. You can use it to check for trends in your energy seasonal energy use. If your use peaks in summer, then you probably have a high cooling load, the building probably isn't very well insulated or shaded, and you probably have an inefficient air unit. Same goes for high winter use, but against cold, and lack of proper insulation is probably a large factor, and or maybe an inefficient heating unit.

Just because an appliance is energy star certified does not mean it is very efficient. Consider the certification as starting at moderate efficiency. The lowest rung on the SEER scale for an air unit to qualify as "energy efficient is 16 SEER. Modern consumer mini-split heat pump air conditioners can be as high as 40 SEER, though the trend is that the mores air a unit handles, the less efficient it tends to be.

If your building is well insulated, then the seasonal variation with temperature show a very gentle curve. If it is exceptionally insulate, then the line may well be close to flat.

Use the lines on the graph to explore your yearly low usage month, the yearly max usage month, the average, and so forth. If you have a sharp hump in your usage, find the line at the base of the hump at set that as your reduction goal.

The Energy Use Visualizer is there to model and compare how your expected reduction will affect your energy use profile.