GHI education manager reduced energy and carbon emissions down 40%+ in 2023

This year, my family’s energy use is down 41% from last year, and carbon emissions were down 46% from 2022, but we only saved $100 due to the high inflation of energy costs.

We produced almost 4,500 kWhs of solar, up 200 kWhs from 2022 from our south-facing 3.96 Panasonic solar installed by The Green Panel

The solar to battery allows me to be 99% off the summer 2 – 7 peak and send 66% of our summer solar to the grid during peak when it is needed most.

Our energy use was down this year for two main reasons, though not related to solar power.

First, we installed a whole home dehumidifier in the basement/crawl space in the summer of 2022, and it ran full-time through the fall to get out excess humidity. Then it switches to demand control only and has not run as much this year. It shows how much energy it takes to dehumidify when homes are built or renovated to reduce humidity right from the start.

Next, using degree days.net, I determined it was a fluke year, which was cooler in the summer (71 less CDD) and warmer in the winter, fall, and spring (800+ less HDD!), significantly cutting heating and cooling down.

My house is all-electric, run by an air source heat pump, and most of my travel is on an electric portion of a volt, though there is still some gas usage for travel. So, some carbon is not accounted for here from the use of fossil gas travel; however, most people do not report emissions from travel when reporting home emissions. Something that will be important to account for as total emissions in the future.

The WattCarbon tool here is free to use and one of my favorite ways to visualize energy use and associated carbon emissions by year, month, day, and hour! I could even purchase Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) from them to go zero carbon https://app.wattcarbon.com/marketplace/

Here are more details on my project and how you can too! 
https://greenhomeinstitute.org/little-residence-pearl-platinum-aiming-for-greenstar-zero-carbon/