Our March theme was tackling energy usage. We had a big headstart on this theme back before Christmas when I installed solar panels. We learned that energy for heating, cooling, and for heating water makes up more than 60% of a household's electricity use - Mr 8 volunteered to not have showers (super helpful😂).
I used this focus on energy to get better at making sure dishwashers, washing machines and even charging devices was happening when the sun was shining, and to tighten up a bit on standby power for things like the kettle and TV. We played some fun experiments turning things on and off then using our PV app to work out how much electricity things used. Turning on every light upstairs was 0.7kW, so if we left them on the whole day that could almost be a day's worth of electricity in autumn!
We had some drama with our compost getting too wet and breeding a swarm of flies that managed to find there way into the house thorugh a tear in the flyscreen - gross!
We were challenged in our goal of no new fashion, as the desire to dress up for Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows with WASO proved too much. We are selling on the kid's robes but it was a minor fall off the no new fashion wagon. My witch outfit was fully home-sourced though!
The final verdict on our progress - we are on track to more than halve our electricity-related carbon footprint from 2tCO2e to <1tCO2e, if we can keep the heating down over Winter and keep up our good habits!
"Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world."
- Howard Zinn
