Xcel Energy's Windsource program

[mellowtigger]

A few years ago, I tried to join a solar farm through Xcel Energy, which provides electricity to my house.  They matched me with a provider looking for customers, and that company sent me a subscription packet.  I couldn't make any sense of it.  It was a huge stack of papers in legalese.  I never signed it.

I went back later to the Xcel Energy website, and they had a new offering called "Windsource".  No overwhelming legalese.  I signed up for "100% renewable energy" right there on their website.  Easy.  I've been in it over 2 years now.  They send an annual statement with some details about my usage and carbon impact.  Here is the notice that I received today.

2020 Environmental Impact for Terry:

Last year, you purchased 4596 kilowatt hours of wind power. That’s equivalent to 6.2 hours of a 2 Megawatt wind turbine operating at capacity. You also avoided 4798 pounds of CO2 being released into the atmosphere, which is as much as 5459 miles driven in a car. We appreciate your commitment to wind energy. Together, the Windsource community purchased 641.7 million kilowatt-hours of wind energy in 2020. That’s enough electricity to power 76,820 homes!

That sounds good.  I guess?  I have no sense of scale, though.  I have nothing to compare it with.  I'll take the "win" anyway.  I'm at 100% renewable electricity, which is great.  I still need to figure out how to eliminate my gas usage.  That's something I don't think is feasible without just demolishing and rebuilding the whole house with a focus on solar thermal heating (both water and air).  I once visited a house designed that way, so I know it's possible even in cold Minnesota.

Maybe someday.  For now, I'll just take these numbers as a momentary "win".  Still waiting for that Green New Deal to happen.

Comments

[mtbc]

Great! Getting partway still counts, goodness. For what it's worth, I think there are supposed to be variants of electric heat pumps that can actually make sense in colder climates but I don't now recall any details.

[mllesatine]

Do you also heat your house with electricity? 3496 kwh is a lot for one person.

I should check what kind of electricity source I can get. I think my provider has different options.

[mellowtigger]

I do have a gas heater on my central air unit, but "central" in my house means just the main floor really because the ducts are awful and might as well not exist on the 2nd floor. It seems like a high number, though, doesn't it? Elsewhere there's a comparison page that shows only this image.

What is the timescale for that comparison? I think it's just 1 month. What counts as a neighbor (Minneapolis, Hennepin County, all of Minnesota)? Who knows?

Maybe it's high because I live so far north with more hours of darkness than southern states.
Maybe it's high because I live where people are stuck indoors because of the severe cold for so many months.
Maybe it's high because I rely on my electric blankets for warmth and a 24-hour security light in my back yard.

I just don't know.

[mellowtigger]

I've done some more searching, and it looks like my numbers really are lower than typical. I found this webpage more helpful than most that I looked at. It notes that northern states tend to be dual-sourced between electricity and gas, while southern states tend more towards all electric.

"The average U.S. household consumes about 11,000 kilowatthours (kWh) per year."
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricity-use-in-homes.php

[darkoshi]

Last year at my house I used 5300 KWH and the year before 5100. I'm in SC and don't use the A/C nearly as much as most people otherwise it would be higher. At my partner's house, he uses about 6000 to 8000 a year. We both have a gas heater and gas water heater. Your numbers, being up north, sound pretty good to me.

About electric blankets, I use one at night in the winter to keep my feet warm in bed. When I used a Kill-a-watt meter to check how much energy it uses, I was surprised at how low it was - under half a watt. Although when I initially turned on the blanket, it showed 160W and then immediately dropped to the lower numbers, so I'm not certain the meter was measuring it right.

I considered one of those solar farms but for various reasons didn't do it. I still might like to someday, or maybe get panels on my roof though that has other benefits and drawbacks.

[mllesatine]

Ok, I just checked in with my parents who live in a freestanding house. They used 3000 kwh last year. I think I'm under 1000 kwh but I live in an apartment so that comparison is lacking because I don't have outdoor light sources. My parents have those movement-triggered lights.

According to this source (in German) that's slightly below average. Probably because my parents don't heat water with electricity because they have a central heating system that does it. And the above source includes water boiler usage.

Based purely on my own experiences most Germans don't heat with electricity. It was done in the 1980s and 1990s because you could buy electricity during the night when prices were a lot lower but that's no longer the case so electricity-based heating is crazy expensive nowadays and anyone who can afford it has switched to other heating sources.

If I take the 236 kwh per month than wouldn't that only be 2832 kwh per year? Where are the other 1800 kwh coming from? Or is this for April and therefore doesn't include more electricity usage in the winter months? I'm a bit mad that your provider doesn't give you better numbers to compare to your neighbors. It's not even clear to me if neighbor means household or person.