Making "Cents" of the EPS Score

Last week I posted our latest Energy Performance Score. The Energy Performance Score is a great tool for illustrating how much energy a house will use and how much carbon it will produce. However, it only has relevance if people can compare it to their current home or other homes they are considering buying. Today, I wanted to break that score down into something we can all relate to. Dollars and cents.

We've been told by the City of Portland's Office of Planning and Sustainability that the average household in Portland uses 11,500 kWh of electricity and 600 therms of natural gas per year.

If you dig up your latest PGE bill and divide the total amount due by the number of kWh you used you'll find that, with all of the fees, taxes and public purpose charges it comes out to around 10.5 cents per kWh. So, .105 x 11,500 kWh = a total average electricity bill of $1,207.50 per year.

Running through the same math with your NW Natural Gas bill you should see that usage and fees come to about $1.27 per therm. So, 600 therms per year at $1.27 is $762 per year.

So the energy cost for the average house in Portland is $1207.5 + $762 = $1,969.50 per year

Now, let's look at the EPS sheet provided to us by Energy Trust of Oregon. In the lower right hand corner you'll see that our home is projected to use $1,128 of energy per year.
Of course, some homes are better than average and some are worse but if you subtract our $1,128 from the average $1,969.50 you get a savings of $841.50 per year or $70.12 per month. That's a savings of 42% on your monthly energy bill and it's all done through conservation. The methods and materials we use to build homes allow the home owners to use less energy without sacrificing comfort or lifestyle.

Keep in mind that energy rates have been rising faster than incomes so, you can expect that in the future, the savings from buying an energy efficient home will only increase.

Mark Mecklem - Miranda Homes