Now that I've got a decent amount of data and some suggested actions - what to do next? Well, I've decided the next reasonable step is a home energy audit. Lucky for me that I live in Colorado and the Governor's Energy Office has a great website to guide me through all of the options and rebates available By using the site I learned that my electric utility offers free home energy audits so I called them and scheduled one. Unfortunately they were busy until December, but hey at least it's free!

I figured this was the most logical approach because it seemed like Google PowerMeter's suggestions might not give me the biggest bang for the buck. However, the audit will undoubtedly raise some interesting issues. My home energy monitor only monitors electricity usage - not gas - and my home uses gas for space heating and hot water. What if the audit finds that my biggest savings come from reducing my gas usage instead of electric? I've got no way to monitor that. Yet another bump along the road of early technology adopters I suppose, but it just goes to show that the hype in this market is way ahead of the reality.

Look for my next post on this topic after my home energy audit in early December.