The June Duke Energy Bill is in and the good news from last month is still coming in. Let's just cut to the chase, shall we?
June 2012 Bill (May - June)
Energy Consumed: 689 kWh
Days in Bill: 33
Average Daily Consumption: 20.88 kWh/day
June 2012 Bill: $75.51
Cooling Degree Days: 222 (every day had either an HDD or CDD).
Energy Usage per CDD: 3.10 kWh/CDD
June 2013 Bill (May 2 - June 4)
Energy Consumed: 431 kWh
Days in Bill: 33
Average Daily Consumption: 13.06 kWh/day (37.5% Reduction)
June 2012 Bill: $50.93 ($24.58 bill savings)
Cooling Degree Days: 169 (22 days had CDDs)
Energy Usage per CDD: 1.70 kWh/CDD (45.2% Reduction)
So it's looking great...but not for long. My June Bill would have been lower except my Mom flew in on the 30th as we had our baby shower on the 1st. One of the things we had my mom do was start washing the baby clothes we've collected so far. We had to do the same thing after shower with all the new clothes. Needless to say, the clothes dryer was "cooking" and really uses a lot of electricity.
Help is on the way for that though...as Heat Pump Dryers are coming out...just not until 2014. However, they don't appear to have a good return on investment as of yet. But, I will say good ole' competition should drive down prices to make it more reasonable. Remember my GE Geospring water heater? When that come out initially, it was $2-2.5k each. Now they are selling for $1k. I would expect utilities to offer rebates on these unit also given the offer large power demand reduction. But...only time will tell.
