Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 3
Measuring Energy Consumption
Abstract
Measuring energy consumption is a very important part of gathering the
information we need to conserve energy, protect the environment and save money.
In many cases, utility providers make measuring energy consumption by the month
quite easy. They provide the values on the invoices they send us each month. In
other cases, we can derive the amount of fuel we have used during a specific time
period by recording deliveries and inventories on a regular basis. Along with our
energy consumption values we must record environmental data that may effect our
energy consumption over time and from one location to another. This is the begin-
ning of our systematic method of gathering information needed to conserve.
3.1
Electric Consumption
Electricity providers give us an invoice with all the required information to record
our electric consumption month to month. Some electric invoices are difficult to
understand. Depending on the company's preferences, they may include references
to demand charges, laddered charges and others. Some meter readings listed may
include a conversion factor in order to arrive at the total kWh consumed. None of
these items are important for our purposes. There are only a few items we need to
pull from the invoice to make our data collection successful.
Most providers issue invoices shortly after the end of the month in which the ser-
vices where provided. So for service in January we would look for an invoice arriving
sometime in February. The exact dates the provider delivered service are most likely
found near the meter readings section of the invoice. These dates may not be the first
day of the month or the last day of the month. Utility providers cannot possibly read
all the meters on the same day each month. So your invoice may have a billing cycle
that is different than other customers of the same utility provider. In the example
below of one section of an electric invoice we can see from the meter reading infor-
mation the start date and the end date and we know it is referring to service primarily
delivered in January, 2014.
