Therefore, a family can reduce their CO2 footprint even further by off-peak electricity usage.
"There are four items that make up almost 70% of our electricity usage, " she says.
BBC: Tokyo firms and households face higher electricity costs
Electricity usage, perhaps the best barometer of economic activity, was essentially flat this summer on a month-to-month basis.
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Because the platform cannot easily access real-time electricity usage information from the utilities, even where smart meters exist.
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And the actual electricity usage figures they provide are from a published paper that absolutely anyone can Google.
The government has asked households and businesses in parts of the country to cut electricity usage by 15% to avoid possible blackouts.
No wonder electricity usage--the best indicator of household spending and activity--is plummeting.
"If you manage to keep the electricity usage to 300 kilowatt hours each month, Tepco's price hike wouldn't affect you too much, " she explains.
BBC: Tokyo firms and households face higher electricity costs
It is interesting to note that as of August 2010, 64.5 million urban Chinese apartments, 25% of the total, had showed no electricity usage for six consecutive months.
Several utilities are conducting pilot programs that use Home Area Networks (HAN), the household-facing layer of technology, to provide customers with real-time information on electricity usage and prices.
Decking out homes with smartphone-controlled appliances and using gadgets to keep tabs on electricity usage isn't exactly new, but the MeterPlug thinks it can do a better job of tracking exactly how much dough your devices are burning in electricity.
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Ford and its business associates worked with researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology to create a computer model that calculates the electricity usage of a typical single family in their home for one year and the associated savings with moving to an energy-efficient lifestyle.
The new meters send electricity and water usage reports via wireless network, but in Santa Clara, a city of 118, 000 in the heart of the Silicon Valley, they also have an unusual separate channel that provides free, outdoor Internet.
That means the GSM Mobile World Congress, the telecommunications industry's largest annual trade show, will be abuzz with discussion of devices like "smart" meters that report a home's usage of electricity, natural gas or water back to the utility, and to your phone.
Look at Seattle, where the Mariners saved themselves a million dollars by drastically cutting their energy usage ( over five years, a 45% reduction in natural gas usage, a 30% reduction in electricity, and a 25% reduction in water usage).
Customers with smart thermostats reduced their usage by 27%, and customers with gateway systems, which adjust the electricity use of multiple appliances, reduced their usage by 43% during the peak hours.
For example, a number of companies provide tailored advice for individuals about how to save money on their electricity bills based on their own energy usage data, which is made available through the Administration-catalyzed, industry-led Green Button initiative.
Nokia, with an eye to emerging markets where electricity is scarce and there's high Internet usage by young people, claims the battery is good for 17 hours of talk time.
He noted coal consumption, mostly used for electricity generation, has fallen 10%, while natural gas usage is up 25%.
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Based on electricity rates, the data is broken down to show the cost of both total energy usage and Volt charging energy use.
The square glows red, yellow or green depending on how much electricity you're guzzling, and you have the ability to specify what qualifies as acceptable usage.
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