A Tale of Two Homes

As you know, we’ve been on a bit of an Always On crusade lately. Sense recently conducted research to understand what factors are most responsible for Always On energy usage. We analyzed energy data from 4,271 customers’ homes and a survey asked homeowners their zip code, the number of household members, the year their house was built, and the total square footage. It also asked respondents to enumerate their consumer electronics and other electrical devices in their homes.

We analyzed the data to see what energy patterns would emerge. One of the first patterns we noticed, not unexpectedly, was a correlation between bigger houses and higher energy usage. But we looked closer and realized that it was the number of gadgets that was driving energy usage in those larger homes, and not necessarily the square footage. Here’s an example of two actual homes from our research.

The 5,000 square foot home has four residents, while the 2,000 square foot home has only two. You’d think that the bigger home would use a lot more energy, but the homes’ energy totals are less than 500W apart because the smaller home has so many appliances and consumer electronics. In fact, the smaller house has 23x the Always On usage generated by devices running all the time.

We’ll be sharing more details on our energy analysis in coming blog posts, but the clear lesson is this: More devices in your home translate into higher energy usage overall because of much higher Always On usage. So take some tips from our previous post about The King of Always On and find ways to get control over your Always On power.