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Saving Energy in Smart way, not emotional one. Energy Detective Guideline by Wei-Jung HO

What is Energy Detective Guideline?

It is a guideline, a tool, a framework for detecting your electrical usage in daily lives. Follow the guideline step by step and let's make a change to save the world smarter.

Overview

01/ Select spaces

02/ Appliances table

03/ User observations

04/ Historical energy data analysis

05/ Comparison of expectation and reality

06/ Conclusion for actions

Phase1/ Select spaces

- Step1. Choose a specific space, whereas an electricity bill unit in your daily lives, like your apartment, workspace, and so on. It would be better consider the accessibility of historical energy data, the capability in observation of users behavior, and the possibility in the adoption of energy-saving suggestions.

- Step2. Draw a floor layout, including different functions of the areas. For example, there are a living room, a dining room, a restroom, and a kitchen in my house.

Phase2/ Appliances table

- Step1. List up all the appliances which consume energy in a month based on different specific spaces, such as a TV in the living room.

- Step2. Fill up the table contains the following elements, which includes "areas, appliances, electricity consumption (Watt), numbers of appliances, expected usage frequency (hours x days), and the total energy consumption in a month (kWh)." For example, there is a LED light in the bathroom area, and the power factor is 10 Watt, the estimated consumption is 3 hours per day. Hence, in a month is "3 hrs. x 30 days x 10 Watt = 0.9 kWh."

- Step3. And the table is general for a month although it is different in seasons. You can record the different usage behavior in the different situation. Like in winter days, you might consume more energy than in summer.

- Step4. After filling up the table, users can calculate the total energy usage for an expected month in the bottom line.

Phase3/ User observations

- Step1. Sketch personas of users: Write down few sentences to describe the characteristics of a user in the selected space, including behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and background information, as well as the environment in which a persona operates. For example, the most important alliance in Mr.Papa's life is television. He always likes being a couch potato after works. However, the related alliances open all year round, like a cable modem, Xiaomi box, and chromecast.

- Step2. Clock diagram/ touch points: List the persona of each user in different areas on a certain day. Then, sketch the timeline or clock diagram based on the statement.

- Step3. Answer the following questions:

  1. In a selected space, what are the different energy usage in different areas? Which area consume the most energy? And why?
  2. Is it a public or private area? How many users in it, whether they were used energy efficiently?
  3. Among the observed users, what are the reasonable but more energy-consuming appliances in the daily lives? Or what are the preferences and connections of different users' electricity usage?
  4. What is the different time distribution of each appliance? What are the low-energy appliances that are open all year round?
Phase4/ Historical energy data analysis

Step1. Collect your electricity bills first, and make a line chart for it.

Step2. Find out the mean, maximum, and minimum of the data. And ask why? Are there any similarities between seasons?

Phase5/ Comparison of expectation and reality

Step1. Combine the calculation in step2 and 4, and make the comparison. Is the estimation too low or too high, or is anything missing?

Phase6/ Conclusion for actions

Step1. After finishing all these steps, what do you find and how does it benefit the energy saving in your daily lives?

Step2. Discuss the results with other users in a selected space. What are the different perspectives that they see? Is there any new insight?

Credits:

Created with images by Comfreak - "light bulb current light" • Riccardo Annandale - "untitled image" • cocoparisienne - "building plan floor plan architectural" • Naomi Hébert - "Kitchen" • Teddy Kelley - "untitled image" • PhotoMIX-Company - "digital marketing technology notebook" • Andreas Kind - "Illusions" • geralt - "result balance sheet follow"

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