The good news- my personal home scored an impressive -3 on the HERS rating system. What this means is that our house should be right at net zero, or slightly net positive. Our E-gauge monitoring system has independently verified that the HERS calculations were accurate when averaged over the year. During the summer months, we were averaging about $40/month of over production. On these short days leading up to the winter solstice, we are running around a $30 deficit.

What I find to be inaccurate is the chart saying how the energy is likely to be used. For us, showers and clothes washing and drying seem to use up about 80% of the energy that we use. I HATE seeing the e-gauge when someone has just taken a shower or the dryer is running. It actually gets to the point that I am reluctant to do laundry because I don't want to see the energy use graph (or at least that is what I tell my wife).

I think that it would be instructive for everyone to have an energy monitoring system in their house. It makes you aware of how much energy you are using in real time, and if possible, you can turn things off that don't need to be on. Bottom line- we are doing pretty darn well for a family of four with two teenagers showering a bunch and generating an inordinate amount of dirty clothes...