One word describes April 2022: miserable. It has been demonstrably colder and windier this year than prior years. Naturally, it impacted solar PV production and our household’s energy usage:
A total of ~739 kWh produced for the month. In terms of electricity production versus consumption my household ended up “in the red” ~48 kWh. Had we produced the same amount of electricity as the year before we would have been “in the black” ~116 kWh. Also, given the difference in weather we probably would have used a lot less electricity. For the year so far we are “in the red” ~895 kWh. Year-over-year versus the same period last year we are ~400 kWh more “in the red.”
Production is one part of this, but so is consumption. As I have described before, we are trying to limit our use of natural gas in the household. Keeping the thermostat low and using electrical heat in small spaces has worked. Even with a billing period that was ~10 degrees cooler than the year before we managed to use ~2% fewer therms of natural gas. For the year we have used 58 fewer therms, which works out to an equivalent of ~1,700 kWh of electricity. My hope is that May represents a turnaround in fortunes, but the weather has not been kind the past few days. Cold, windy and rainy is the order of the day.
We feel that this is the right approach to energy usage given all of the problems inherent in the production of natural gas and the high level of renewables utilized in Iowa’s electricity generation mix. Also, it will allow me to install additional solar panels in a couple of years as our household usage increases.
For the month of January we drove the Nissan Leaf 649.1 miles at an average efficiency of 5.3 miles per kWh. Year-over-year versus the same period last year we drove ~12.5% more.
This works out to a CO2 avoidance of ~743 pounds versus my truck assuming we pulled every watt for the Nissan Leaf from the grid at an average carbon intensity for my region. For the year so far we have avoided ~2,531 pounds of CO2.