Issue

In some way electricity is an infinite resource. Electricity is an energy deliver, and energy can never disappear only transform. Electricity in itself creates no environmental pollution, and because it´s an infinite resource, it shouldn`t be a problem to use as much as we want, right?

The problem is that even though energy is infinite, the way we produce electricity today is neither infinite nor environmentally sustainable.

How much electricity can we consume before it´s too much, before it´s unsustainable? One answer is that it depends on how the electricity we use is produced, which today is hard to know!

(More info: Swedish Energy Agency)

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What to do

Everyone has always the possibility of reducing his or her personal consumtion of electricity. If the overall consumtion decreases, the production of non-sustainable electricity is also reduced. Another nice effect is that you can lower your electricity costs!

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How can Lodestar show you “how much is too much”?

Lodestar will make us aware and remind us of the products and behaviours in our homes that effect our electricity consumtion. But everyone have different living situations. It can vary widely depending on the type and size of dwelling, how many people that lives togheter, when and how much you stay at home, the variability of weather and seasons.

If Lodestar would use the same “too much” level for all, it would be difficult to identify and change my behaviour. If Lodestar on the other hand, would be built on several general models, the risk is that the data we have doesn´t match my actual consumtion.

Lodestars soultion is that “too much” is indicated with two aspects:

1. Your current usage compared to your average usage for the same period. This allows you to receive alerts if your usage is more than usual and you can even see your long-term trend.

2. Our common use of Lodestar community. You can choose to compare your profile with someone else or select a profile you think has a similar life situation as you. From this you can draw conclusions about whether you consume “too much” or not.

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The picture shows how a graph might look at Lodestars webservice.