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Community Corner

Monitors Help Homeowners Watch Energy Consumption

Program at the library on Monday night taught residents how to save electricity by being vigilant about plugged-in appliances.

Before the advent of DVDs, the running joke with VHS players was that no one knew how to set the clock properly, causing it to blink eternally.

Even without the VHS player's timer on, the tendency was to keep the unit plugged in until it was needed again.

While 20 years ago the prevailing wisdom might have been to dismiss the fact that the unit was always plugged in, today we know that a great deal of energy is wasted by leaving electronic appliances on standby around the clock.

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"The average house uses $2000 on utility bills and about half of that is wasted on electricity that is in sleep mode," said Maxine Tagay, a George Washington University student who is on a summer internship with the Berkeley Heights Environmental Commission.

Tagay, along with Environmental Commission Chairman Leonard Berkowitz, presented a program to about 25 residents at the Berkeley Heights Library on Monday night on ways they can monitor home energy usage.

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"If people start unplugging things, they can save about five percent a month (on an electric bill)," Tagay said. 

Tagay, who is majoring in economics and environmental studies, said that many homeowners get a false sense of energy usage when they visibly turn off an appliance by pressing the power button. In reality, TVs, microwaves, stereos and computers, still consume electricity when they are merely plugged in and in standby mode.

Berkowitz said that the township had recently carried out an energy audit of all its buildings and that he is at the implementation stage on many of the suggestions. "Most of them will reduce electricity consumption in the buildings," Berkowitz.

That's important, Berkowitz said, because it provided a baseline from which to understand eletrical usage tendencies in the municipality.      

Berkowitz said that the buildings audit was part of the townships efforts to achieve silver status from Sustainable Jersey. Sustainable Jersey is a certification program for municipalities in New Jersey that want to go green, save money, and take steps to sustain their quality of life long-term.  The program links certification with state and private financial incentives, and a fully resourced program of technical support and training.

Monday night attendees were shown a Belkin energy use Insight monitor, a gizmo that allows homeowners to monitor the kilowatt usage and costs associated with home energy consumption.  

The unit works by accepting a plug from an appliance and both enter a socket. A monitor sits at the end of the socket cable that can display how much wattage is being used and the costs associated with that consumption.

Some electricity monitoring units are available at the Berkeley Heights Library for check out. The monitors can also be purchased for around $35 at retail.

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