What is the point?

In a July/August 2010 article in Dwell magazine, it was reported that the production of most electricity is on average 35% efficient- in other words 65% is lost during production.  Then another 4% is lost during transmission of the electricity to the power grid.  Then another 6% is lost within the power grid before the electricity actually gets to your house.

That's a lot of waste.

Once in your house, lighting and climate control (HVAC) take up the most share of your usage.   Sure you can control this usage to an extent, but the most inefficiency has already happened before the power reached your house.  You can replace bulbs with CFL bulbs, set back your thermostat, replace appliances with energy-star ones, add insulation in older houses, etc.  The bottom line is that you can maybe save 30% overall on utilities- so $900 annually on a $3,000 total annual utility cost.  Common sense plays a big part of this savings- we all know that leaving a light bulb on costs money, right?!

Why then are so many companies focused on helping you to monitor your energy usage to basically save you $75 per month?  Lots and lots of venture capital dollars are spent on these energy monitoring solutions that need you to take a reasonable action to affect a change.  But you already have the common sense to know what they will tell you.  Why?  It's easy.  The hard part is changing the other stuff that will really matter- making the production and path of electricity to your home more efficient.

Energy monitoring misses the point right now without other infrastructure components in place to affect change.  Eventually they will all work together in 10-20 years, but for now, do what you can that makes common sense.  Think of what Ben Franklin might say (he always has practical words of wisdom)- 'waste not, want not'.