Utility Bill Analysis to Direct and Encourage Efficiency Measures

Utility Bill Analysis to Direct and Encourage Efficiency Measures

Utility bills in a community are reviewed to determine what houses use the most energy and water per person or per square foot. Those with excessive utility use will be informed and given suggestions on how to be more efficient. This information could also be given to relevant and screened contractors with or without (if all information is public domain) consent who would then approach the owner offering solutions. Credit mechanisms could be arranged to help finance improvements where the expected annual utility savings exceeds the annual cost of the loan.

Data Collection:

Utility bills are often public information. Ideally this data could be obtained in digital form. House statistics should be available from the government offices responsible for assessing property values for tax purposes. There may be some error in assessor information. Perhaps checking building license approvals would also be helpful. Obtaining an estimate of the number of occupants might be possible by checking number of bedrooms or by collaboration with state or federal agencies.

Efficiency Score:

Properly comparing diverse households to determine which ones would likely most benefit from cost effective interventions could be a challenge. Perhaps the easiest method might be determining resource utilization per square foot of dwelling space. If occupant data is available a per occupant ratio may also be used. The causes and magnitudes of error with these calculations seem potentially significant and should be evaluated.

Competition to Drive Results and Innovation

Informing households that they are among the least efficient would likely be a motivation to change. Another motivator could be obtained through a time limited competition. A household resource efficiency competition could be had where households that are the most efficient at the end of some specified time win some sort of prize. The challenge would be in structuring the competition in a way that nearly all households can have a chance to win and therefore are motivation to try. For example someone could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars installing solar cells and a water capture and filtering system so that their house uses no utilities. This would be an unwelcome outcome if it caused those who could not afford those modification to abandon the effort.

Other potential factors to consider in competition design include the following:

verifying residence of individuals and number of household occupants during competition period
efficiency strategies that involve transfer of costs like more use of public bathrooms and power outlets, use of generators, more use of cars for power and accommodation
unhealthy attempts like maintaining unsafe temperatures in summer or winter, not washing hands and items as thoroughly, using fuse boxes frequently to cut power to appliances.

After the competition, participants would be encouraged to share their strategies for trying to win the competition and thereby potentially motivate and reveal new ways to save resources.