Track Electricity Usage

If you don’t know how to track your electricity usage, it may be difficult to know if you’re overpaying or not. It’s like trying to buy a new laptop without knowing what you’re looking for.

What’s the difference between RAM and storage? What is even the right amount for either of those? What type of hard drive is best? How could you possibly know so much about an item that you only reevaluate every few years?

Well, the same is true for electric companies. They bank on consumers not knowing what they’re looking for and settling for a poor option instead of doing the research.

Power Wizard Knows The Right Option For You!

Through Power Wizard’s Shopping Tool, consumers can instantly compare over 130 providers with their needs. Imagine if you could walk into an unbiased laptop store and just say what you need and get the option that was the best for you!

If you’re looking for electricity, you don’t have to imagine, we’ve done that for you with our Shopping Tool. Unsure if you want to switch up providers yet? Take a look at our guide if you still want to learn how to track your usage!

 

How To Track Your Electricity Usage

Jessi has been doing the same thing that many others do each month—she pays her bill without keeping track of her electricity usage.

Why would she need to keep track of her usage?

The bill comes. You pay the bill. Maybe you even have it set on autopay.

Life should be simple, right?

However, Jessi has been interested in saving extra money each month to help her pay off her college loans quicker.

She wonders, “How can I track my electricity usage each month?”

There are many ways to track your electricity usage, whether online or through apps on your phone.

We’ll look at how you can use the internet to keep track of your usage, and we’ll see how phone apps could also help save you money each month.

How To Track Electricity Usage Online

The internet often makes our lives easier.

One click of a button, and you can have new socks delivered in two days.

Did you know that you can use the internet to track electricity usage?

If you’re in Texas, you have a few options.

One option available to many customers is to use a Smart Meter.

Smart Meter Texas (SMT) is a collaborative effort from the following utilities:

• AEP Texas Central Company
• AEP Texas North Company
• CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC
• Oncor Electric Delivery Company, LLC
• Texas-New Mexico Power Company

SMT provides customers access to their energy data (in 15-minute intervals), helping them manage their energy consumption to lower their monthly electric bills.

Many electricity suppliers offer smart meters to their customers.

If your supplier offers smart meters, and if you already have an online account with your electricity provider, you should also be able to see your smart meter data online.

Your smart meter sends the meter readings automatically to your provider so you’ll know exactly how much energy you’ve used.

If you’re interested in tracking your usage to ensure that you’re on the right electric plan with the electric company that best suits your needs, a great option is to let Power Wizard do the work for you.

Power Wizard’s unbiased Savings Estimate Tool can get you started, and Power Wizard constantly monitors your usage so you don’t have to.

Smart Meters: Pros and Cons

Jessi thinks she wants to use a Smart Meter to track her electricity usage.

She searched and discovered that she qualifies for the SMT program, but she wonders if there might be any disadvantages to using one.

Like with most anything, using a Smart Meter to track electricity usage comes with both advantages and disadvantages.

A few advantages are:

• Far greater and more detailed feedback on energy use
• Ability to adjust your habits to lower your monthly bills
• Reduces the number of blackouts and electricity failures

Potential disadvantages of Smart Meters:

• Possible additional fees for installation
• Privacy concerns for collection of personal data
• More consumer responsibility for maintenance

Despite the possible drawbacks, Jessi decided a Smart Meter might be a good choice for her.

3 Apps To Track Electricity Usage

“There’s an app for that.”

How many times have you heard that one before?

There’s an app to remind you when to go to bed. Yet another that tells you which song is playing.

There’s even one that tells you which part of a movie would be the best time to take a bathroom break.

There’s an app for almost everything these days.

When it comes to how you can track electricity usage, there really is an app—or dozens—that can help you keep track of the numbers.

We’ll take a look at three popular “green” apps that might help you:

• Take control of your usage
• Save money each month
• Reduce your carbon footprint

These apps can’t compare plans, REPs, or rates to help you find the best fit like the Savings Estimate Tool with Power Wizard can.

Keep in mind—that even if you do a great job at tracking and even conserving your energy, you’re still doing yourself a disservice if you’re paying more than you should or if you’re on the wrong plan for your home.

App #1 To Track Electricity Usage: Green Outlet

Green Outlet is an app that can help to tackle your home’s energy hogs (we’ll go into detail about these later).

It works by calculating an average monthly rate of energy consumption and determining which home appliances consume the most energy.

It even includes an alert to let you know if you are exceeding the recommended carbon usage.

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App #2 To Track Electricity Usage: Energy Cost Calculator

Energy Cost Calculator is another great option to help you track your electricity usage.

This app calculates the energy cost of an electronic item based on a few equations. You enter an estimated energy use per hour along with hours used per day.

The app shows you exactly what you’re paying for your:

• Cost per day
• Cost per week
• Amount per month
• Cost per year

It also shows your carbon emission per year.

App #3 To Track Electricity Usage: Smappee

Smappee is an app to provides you with all the information you need to track your energy usage and understand the costs associated with that usage.

Along with the app, a clip-on sensor is needed that attaches to your fuse box.

All information about your electricity usage is monitored and provided in real-time, along with the previous 30 days.

One cool feature of this app is that it can pinpoint all of the appliances in your home.

3 Benefits of Tracking Your Electricity Usage

Thanks to her Smart Meter, Jessi has been tracking her electricity usage for a few months now.

Since she began tracking her electricity usage, she has noticed more benefits in addition to an increased awareness of her daily and monthly energy usage.

She has also been more aware of trends in her usage—when she tends to use more electricity throughout each day.

In addition to giving you more control of your usage, tracking your electricity usage provides other benefits as well.

Benefit #1 To Tracking Your Electricity Usage: Save Money

Everyone wants to save money.

Tracking your electricity is a great way to start saving on your monthly bill.

That means a couple of extra lattes, or if you’re like Jessi, it means one step closer to getting that college debt tackled.

Identify Your Power Hogs

When you track your electricity usage, you’re able to find opportunities to save money and live more efficiently by better understanding and identifying your power hogs.

The most common power hogs are:

• Electric heat
• Air Conditioning
• Water heater
• Refrigerator
• Clothes dryer
• Incandescent light bulbs

When you monitor your usage, you can better determine which power hogs in your home are doing the most damage to your bank account.

There are usually alternatives you can purchase or ways to make those items more energy-efficient.

One of the easiest things to do is switch out incandescent light bulbs for LED bulbs. LED bulbs last 20 times longer than incandescents, and they use more than 80 percent less electricity.

Identify Your Vampire Loads

Another way to save money each month is to identify the vampire loads in your home.

You might also have heard this referred to as standby power or that your electronics may be “leaking” electricity.

While they aren’t as cool as Dracula, these vampire loads are your appliances or electronics that keep “sucking” electricity even after they are shut off. They can account for as much as 20% of your monthly bill.

Why pay for the electricity that you don’t use?

Common vampire loads that are always sucking electricity are:

• Desktop computers
• Televisions
• Cell phone chargers
• Gaming consoles
• Microwaves
• Coffee makers
• Hairdryers
• Power tools
• And many more…

While there are some appliances and electronics that should remain in “standby mode” for your benefit—answering machine, refrigerator, router—most of these items can simply be unplugged when they aren’t in use.

This simple act of unplugging unused items daily can help save you money each month.

When you track your electricity usage, you’re able to better identify those items that might be sucking extra money from your pockets each month.

Benefit #2 To Tracking Your Electricity Usage: Track When You’re Away

You might not realize how much electricity is still being used while you’re on vacation.

Those power hogs and vampire loads that we talked about above are still working hard while you’re away.

Tracking your electricity usage when you’re away from home can help save you money, especially when you realize which electronics and appliances you can unplug while you unplug.

But wait, there’s more…

You can even keep tabs on electricity usage to monitor the safety of your vacation home, rental property, or even your grandma’s vacant house.

By monitoring the usage daily, you can keep a closer look at how much electricity is being used compared to how much should be used when the house isn’t occupied.

Hopefully, you never have to worry about someone squatting in your home, but the added peace of mind of being in control might be something to consider.

Benefit #3 To Tracking Your Electricity Usage: Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

Jessi was determined to save money each month. Tracking her electricity usage has helped her take control of her usage.

She now unplugs things like her television, hairdryer, microwave, and phone chargers.

She has also been replacing her old light bulbs with LED bulbs as they burn out.

Without realizing it, she has also been reducing her carbon footprint.

Your carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions that come from the production, use, and end-of-life of a product or service.

A few things go into calculating your carbon footprint, but your electricity usage is one of them.

By doing the recommended things to save money on your electricity, you’re also working toward bettering the planet. Now that’s something even cooler than Dracula.

It’s a win-win for you and the planet.

Why Tracking Electricity Usage Could Benefit You

To recap, tracking your electricity can help you:

• Save money
• Track electricity usage when you’re away
• Reduce your carbon footprint

In addition to all the great benefits that we have already mentioned, when you track your usage, it puts you in the driver’s seat.

You’re in control of your usage.

What you do with that knowledge is up to you.

Jessi’s search for answers on how she could save money each month on her electricity bills took her on a different path than she had expected.

She did save money. She did feel more in control of her electricity usage.

But she discovered something else too.

Her monthly usage didn’t fit the electricity plan she was in. She found out she could save even more money by simply switching to a plan that made more sense for her home’s unique blueprint.

How To Find the Best Electricity Plan

Jessi wondered which plan would be the best plan for her.

Sorry Jessi, but there is no such thing as the “best” electricity plan. It’s just not that simple.

Many factors should be considered when looking for a plan that fits your individualized electricity needs.

A few questions to ask are:

• What am I currently paying?
• How much power do I use on a monthly and annual basis?
• What kind of contract length am I most comfortable with?
• Would I prefer the budget certainty of a fixed rate?
• How many people are in my home?
• What kind of appliances do I have?
• And more…

Ready to find an individualized plan? Get ready to work.

Once you’ve answered all the questions, you’re ready to start comparing plans.

You’ll need to:

• Search to find all of the REPs that service your area—it’s probably a lot
• Contact each one, one by one
• Make a list of every plan that each REP offers
• Create a spreadsheet
• There’s more, but it’s boring and all you really want to know is the best way to track your electricity usage…

Did you know that there are hundreds of plans out there?

You can spend time, and time, and time, and time, and…

You get the idea. This is not a fun thing to do. It’s a hassle, time-consuming, and confusing.

And after all of that, there is no way to manually compare all of the REPs, all of the plans, and then match the right one to your unique needs.

Don’t fret. There’s always a better way.

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What Is The Easiest Way To Keep Track of Electricity Usage?

When you’ve knocked your head against your desk enough. When you’ve said a few words that you shouldn’t have and the numbers are all beginning to spin around your head…

Power Wizard to the rescue. Welcome to Power Wizard’s Savings Estimate Tool.

You can avoid all of the theatrics and let us do all of the work for you.

All you have to do is enter your zip code to get started.

You’ll be asked a few simple questions about your home.

Power Wizard’s unbiased Savings Estimate gets to work comparing all of the plans available in your area to give you a personalized plan that best fits your unique home electricity needs.

The best part? It takes less than five minutes.

Being a part of the Power Wizard family also means we’ll:

• Manage the entire enrollment process
• Take care of your switch from one REP to another
• Continually monitor your usage and the market
• Let you know if a better plan that saves you money becomes available and help you switch again

Power Wizard Can Track Your Electricity Usage For You

Even with the special tools and apps we mentioned above, it’s easier to track electricity usage with Power Wizard.

Just sit back, let us do the work, and enjoy life.

Since our friend Jessi is a hard-working single girl who does want to enjoy life, she chose the smart way.

While she was thankful for her journey and where it took her, she is even more thankful she found Power Wizard.

She now has a better understanding of how to monitor her usage and how she can save money each month by making wise energy choices.

She also has the peace of mind of knowing she doesn’t have to do all the work herself.

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