EARTH DAILY

DATE PUBLISHED: MAY 7TH, 2013

THE KHANS REDUCE ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION IN THE FLIP OF A SWITCH

MONTHLY KWH USAGE

ISSUE NO.1

WRITTEN BY: MINAHIL KHAN, PERIOD 1

The Process
For my yearlong project I tried to reduce my familys monthly electricity usage. I created a plan with my family to try and reduce the usage. Once I had identied my homes most used electric appliances that is when I started to take action with the help of my family. The most used appliances are the air conditioners. We have 11aircons as we have a 4-bedroom house. The apartment has 3 oors and is quite spacious but we don't use all 11 at the same time. Though at rst they werent always put at a low temperature. Since we have a big house with large windows, light switches werent a big problem. We didnt use them during the day and always remembered to turn them off when they werent in use. Next are the kitchen devices such as the dishwasher, washing and drying machines and the iron. Our house doesnt use a lot of these but when we do, it has a big impact on our KwH usage. Therefore, thinking of ways to reduce their usage was critical to the project plan. As for the other electronic devices, we had to make sure they were left unplugged or uncharged when not in use.

Here is a scatter plot showing the data I collected of my familys electricity usage in KwH

Looking at the Results

I am proud to say that my electricity usage from August has decreased in March by 465 KwH. There were a few bumps in the middle though. For example, in the months of December and January, we had guests over so there were 6 people in my house using electricity. Also, in the middle of my plan I had forgotten to remind my family about the plan so the amount did not decrease. I nally thought of putting up sticky notes near the air-con and light switches. This way it was easy to remind my family to turn them off when not in use, and to keep the temperature of the ACs at 22 degrees or more. February is the month I put reminders into action so by looking at the results table, it has a lower KwH amount than even March. My lowest amount is in November when I had actually made it my priority to tell my parents about the plan and they had to follow it. The bottom line is, my family still has to work harder to try and reduce our usage amount. We still need to improve even more as we have the tendency to forget to look after our electricity usage.

How Many Months Will It Take for the Khan Family to use 300 KwH?
In order to predict how many months it will take my family to use only 300 KwH, I would have to nd the equation of the tted line on my data graph. I will rst have to nd the slope of this line in order to create the equation. To nd the slope I will need 2 sets of coordinate pairs of the data. Any pair can work but I am going to choose (6,2603) and (0, 3438). Now that I have these 2 coordinate pairs, I can solve to get the slope of the line. Slope= 3438-2603 = 835 0-6 -6 Now I have the slope that is rounded to -139.2. It is a negative slope because the line is going downhill. Now I have the slope (m) of the line so I can t it into the equation: y=mx +b Then, I can put in an ordered pair for the x and y values so I can nd the y-intercept of the equation (b). for b since that is the missing part of the equation.

FAMILYS MONTHLY KWH USAGE

Months
August September October November December January February March
-3138 = -139.2x -139.2 -139.2

KwH
3438 3487 2863 2218 3579 3328 2603 2973

3438= -835(0) + b 6 3438 = 0 + b 3438 = b

Now I have all the components to create the equation for this line.

y= -835x + 3438 6 y= -139.2x + 3438

*Rounded decimal

Now that I have the equation I can nd out how many months it will take my family to cut down to 330 KwH. I just need to substitute y. Y represents the KwH so I can substitute it with 300 and leave x in the equation because it represents the number of months. y= -139.2x +3438

22.5 = x
This means it would take about 22 and a half months until my family would reach 300 KwH. Meaning it would take almost 2 years to decrease to that much, so I think my family has room to improve. I do believe my family can work on this more and speed up the process if we try harder.

300 = -139.2x + 3438 300 - 3438 = -139.2x + 3438 -3438

y= -835x + b 6
Then I can substitute the values with the data values.

Remember to....
Make sure all lights are off when not in use!
ordered For example, I can use the Us fans instead of to pair e (0, 3438). I just need solve air conditioners in th e day time! Do not overcha rge electronic devices! If you arent using the water heater turn it off! To we l dr y! Yo u do n t need hairdryers. Try dishwashing once in a

Here are a few appliances used in my house. Think of ways to conserve this electricity by not using all of it unnecessarily. Look on the let for some tips I used in my electricity usage conservation plan! -Minahil Khan, Grade 8