Seems Duke energy’s plan to reduce home energy consumption is to send people a “My Home Energy Report” every month, regardless of their actual energy consumption. While somewhat interesting the fist time through — and yes, I use significantly less energy than what Duke calls an “efficient home” — the monthly mailings quickly becomes old as they provide no new information of value to me. Doubt very many other people are waiting by the mail box on Duke Energy’s monthly attempt at peer pressure either.
I suspect that they’d get more response (people paying attention) if they sent out the notices quarterly unless people opted into monthly delivery. That might prove better for the environment too — less pointless paper statements being printed and mailed to people’s homes.
Update: Was getting ready to shred the latest report when I came upon two others I had filled away. Noticed something extremely odd when comparing the three of them: Duke Energy had drastically changed the number of households I was being compared to:
October 2012: 5,583 households
December 2012: 3,626 households
March 2013: 2,199 households
Is Duke manipulating the samples it uses to change what it defines as “normal usage” in an attempt to better apply peer pressure to its customers?
