One of the pieces of feedback we've been getting since we launched is that people might not know what they should do specifically when renewable generation is low. That is, what should you consider turning off, or leaving off.
That's fair enough, so as a quick way to improve the situation, I found this very useful little widgety thing from GE. It shows how much power (measured in Watts - the units used to measure "right now" electricity use) is used by common appliances in the home.
How much power ("right now" electricity) does each appliance use?
In the link above, the top two rows contain the appliances which you should focus on, and whilst it is U.S. focused, the appliances are all recognisable, and the numbers are all directly applicable in Australia.
The power consumption, or wattage, or "right now" electricity use is important because the data that Mistervint gives you is "right now" electricity generation. The two match up in time. What Mistervint shows you is how much of that right now electricity is renewable. Your appliances use right now electricity to do their thing. You want their thing to be done with as much renewable electricity as possible, and hence you need to know how much of the right now electricity generation is renewable.
The notion of right now electricity can be a little confusing, but just by using Mistervint, you're getting a feel for it. And that's going to be more and more important as we move to a greener and more efficient grid - more on that later though.
Anyway, we'll do some more thinking on how to use this type of visualisation directly in Mistervint. But in the meantime, if you like the widget, or have a question about what it shows, leave a comment.
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