Here’s a quick summary of the plan for those who haven’t read earlier posts about Project Get Off the Grid. Since I live alone in a relatively small, one bedroom condo unit and I’m not there very often because of work and travel, my home energy needs are already small, roughly, according to my monthly Duke Energy bills, $44 or 520 KWH per month. Although that’s already way below the average for a one-person home, I still wanted to see what kind of impact I could have on my energy use by changing some everyday habits.

In Phase I of Project Get Off the Grid, I resolved to do the following things:

• Turn off any lights that didn’t have to be on
• Use natural light whenever possible
• Unplug my cell phone, blackberry, and laptop unless they were charging (this means I never had a fully charged device plugged in)
• I should also mention I turned off my thermostat during the last week or so, because we had some unseasonably warm weather

Simple as that. I wasn’t perfect all the time, but overall I think I did a pretty good job. More importantly, I developed some great habits. So, with no further delay, here are the results:

Basically, just by being more disciplined about turning off lights and, occasionally, my thermostat, and eliminating “phantom” charges associated with some of my portable devices, my electricity use and monthly bill went down by 18.8% and 7.7%, respectively, versus last year (I guess Duke Energy snuck in some price increases). My new habits saved me about $0.12 per day or, if I continued them for the next eleven months, $43.80 per year.

To some, $44 over the course of a year may seem somewhat inconsequential, but consider how it would impact someone with a larger electricity bill. If someone’s monthly bill were, for example, a more normal $100, saving 7.7% would represent cumulative annual savings of $92.40. Not too bad.

Plus, in terms of actual energy use, I was 18.8% more efficient, which I’m pretty pumped about, because that’s the true measure of how I’m affecting our environment. The savings are just icing on the cake.

There’s simply no reason why any person, Average Joe or not, shouldn’t be developing the same habits I did over the course of the last month or two. It required virtually no effort and didn’t cost me a cent. In fact, it saved me almost $5, a number I expect will grow tremendously as long as I maintain these new habits. To top it all off, I’m helping the environment. And that’s just Phase I. In Phase II, which I’ll introduce shortly, I’ll be incorporating other energy saving techniques to reduce my dependence on the Grid even further.

Grow .2, a form of solar ivy, is depicted covering the side of a house.

It’s pretty much exactly what you think: solar-powered “ivy”. SMIT (be sure to check out the pictures under the “Grow .1″ and “Grow .2″ links at the top of the page), a Brooklyn-based start-up company, has been developing an alternative energy system that resembles ivy crawling up the side of a building.

There are two versions of the system, Grow .1 and Grow .2. Grow .2 is the simpler version, which basically substitutes traditional fixed solar panels with a flexible covering of small, thin, flexible solar “leaves” that can adapt to most buildings. The modular nature of the solar panels makes replacing, repairing, and upgrading the lattice cheaper and easier.

Grow .1 is where things start to get really cool. Grow .1, which looks even more like ivy than Grow .2, is a hybrid energy source, harnessing both solar power and wind to produce energy. This system, which also utilizes a modular format, is made up of “bricks”, each of which hold five solar leaves. Embedded within each leaf are thin film photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into energy. In addition, as each leaf twists and bends in the wind, tiny piezoelectric generators in the flexible “stems” of the leaves convert the movement into more energy. Not only that, but the system also uses reclaimed and recycled material whenever possible to minimize its ecological footprint. Pretty awesome.

Grow .1, a hybrid energy-delivery system that harnesses both wind and solar power.

Although the company name could use some work, SMIT is apparently getting someone’s attention, as is evidenced by the fact that they have been invited to include Grow .1 in the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (to go to the broader exhibit site, click here – it’s pretty overwhelming, but fascinating).

I don’t know how well the devices actually work, or whether they’ll be revolutionary or not, but, either way, it’s all pretty damn cool. Don’t you think?

It has quickly become apparent that the hardest part about turning stuff off is simply getting yourself in the habit of doing so. During the first few days of this little experiment, I found myself struggling to remember to switch off lights as I left rooms or to unplug my laptop before going to bed. However, after a week or so of forcing myself to be energy efficient, turning things off became a matter of habit and I was doing it without even noticing. Now I almost never have anything turned on unnecessarily, and I’m not even trying. Point is, the biggest hurdle during this whole thing has been developing a habit. Once that’s accomplished, it’s just second nature.

This experience reminded me of something that might prove useful to families trying to save energy. When I was about 10 years old, living with my mom, dad, and brother, our entire family was horrible about turning off lights. To have lights on in every room of our house, whether or not people were around, whether or not it was nighttime or daytime, was not out of the ordinary. Our electricity bills were just stupid, even though I had two working parents and my brother and I were in school all day. Finally, my dad got fed up and told my brother and me that, for one whole year, he would pay us the difference between every month’s energy bill and the bill from the same period the year before. It’s amazing how a little bit of financial incentive can make 10 year old kids shape up. We starting religiously turning off lights, even scolding our parents when they forgot, and it wasn’t long before the entire family was unconsciously turning off lights when we left rooms. Our electricity bills were soon significantly lower.

This plan didn’t save my dad any money up front (because it went to my brother and me), but it did save energy and establish great habits. And once the habits were formed, they never really went away, even after a year had passed and the financial incentive was removed. I’m willing to bet that, in the long run, my dad’s plan saved him a boatload of money. Could be something to try for those with kids.

My first resolution during this transition to a greener life is, simply enough, to use less energy. Our truly massive energy needs (in 2005, humans apparently consumed 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 J of energy), and the way we go about creating and using that energy, have been a significant cause of environmental damage and continue to be a serious threat to our environment’s short and long-term well-being. One of the greenest actions we can take is to consume less energy.

Although there are tons of ways to decrease energy use, I’m starting with the basics: turning off lights, appliances, computers, etc. – anything that uses electricity – when I don’t need them. And that’s not all. Many appliances, such as VCRs, televisions, stereos, computers, kitchen appliances, cell phones, etc., actually drain a small amount of electricity just by being plugged in, even when they’re, technically, switched “off”. With that in mind, I’m also resolving to unplug certain pieces of electronic equipment when I’m not actually using them, which, for now, will include my cell phone, blackberry, and laptop. I’ll unplug any of them when they’re fully charged, and I won’t keep them plugged in overnight. I’d include my alarm clock in this category, but showing up late to work won’t exactly strengthen my paper thin job security – thank you, credit crisis. I won’t be unplugging some items, like my TV, VCR, and DVD player, because accessing the plugs would require moving furniture, which would suck. In any case, I figure that’s a good starting point. Project Get Off the Grid: Phase I. Easy enough.

Although having certain electronic devices plugged in directly to your wall socket does drain energy, plugging these devices into a power strip and switching the strip’s switch to “off” will solve that problem. For now, since I don’t currently own a power strip, I’ll just stick to the current plan. Power strip has been added to my grocery list. Baby steps…

In order to really get a feel for the difference this small behavioral change can make, I’ll be comparing this period’s energy bill to my energy bill from the same period last year.

Now, this may not be a perfect comparison, considering many variables come into play, such as time of year and associated weather conditions (how hard my heating/cooling has to work), how often I’m actually home (my work hours were significantly worse at this time last year), my travel schedule, etc. However, I’m hoping it’ll at least give us a rough idea of what kind of impact such changes can have. I’m fairly certain it won’t be a huge one, because I’ve read lighting is apparently only about 10% of a typical home’s energy use and that’s the major change I’ll be making, but I’m still embarrassingly curious, and secretly (OK, not secretly anymore) hoping it makes a noticeable difference. Seeing a quantifiable difference (and quantifiable savings, something we all can relate to) on paper will probably give me a little motivation to stay in the habit of “disconnecting” (mind you, I am only “disconnecting” when there is absolutely no need to be “connected” – certainly not a difficult task).

Updates to come.