The county fair solar demo that shifted my whole approach

I was at the Iowa State Fair back in 2019, standing under this big tent where they had a working solar panel setup hooked up to a little fan and a radio. The guy running it pointed out how much power a single 300 watt panel made that afternoon enough to run a window AC unit for 6 hours. It hit me that I'd been thinking too small about my own house just swapping a few light bulbs instead of really looking at the big picture stuff. Has anyone else had a random event or demo totally change how they tackle their own energy use?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_spencer6d ago

Man that's exactly the kind of thing that gets you thinking different. I'd say look into the bigger stuff first like your water heater or HVAC system since those eat up way more power than any light bulb ever could. A simple energy monitor plugged into your panel can show you where your biggest loads are hiding.

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kelly_miller806d ago

Ha, right? Like my fridge has been running longer than my attention span during a Zoom meeting. I mean, idk why I'm still blaming the LED bulbs when my ancient water heater is probably the real vampire sucking the life out of my electric bill. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather blame the little stuff because fixing the big stuff sounds like actual work.