Energy-Efficient Explained

Examples of Energy-Efficiency 

Energy efficiency is the relative thrift, as opposed to extravagance,  with which energy inputs are used to provide goods or services.

The less energy that is used to perform a certain service, the more energy-efficient it is.

The more service that is given for the same amount of energy, the more energy-efficient it is.

Energy-efficiency is one of those terms that seem impossible to define and/or understand without examples.

1. Energy-efficiency increases when energy inputs are reduced for a given level of service, i.e., you move to Waco, Texas. You build a new home there and install an improved HVAC system. It uses less energy than the system in your former home while keeping about the same amount of  square footage equally as cool. It is more energy-efficient.

2. Energy-efficiency increases when there are increased or enhanced services for a given amount of energy inputs. Now you move to Grapevine, Texas and build another new home of the same size as Waco. This new HVAC system actually allows you to cool your home to a more comfortable temperature while using the same or less energy that your former HVAC system used. It is more energy-efficient. 

3. If you kept your home in Grapevine the same temperature as the home in Waco, you would be conserving energy with your more energy-efficient system.

There is also behavior change for energy conservation which is called energy-efficient. 

Your office in Waco has an old, slow elevator that creaks from floor to floor, gobbling energy as it goes. If four people in your Waco office start taking the stairs instead of the elevator, they are conserving energy. Less energy is used but less service is given.

When you move to Grapevine, however, almost everyone takes the new elevator that uses less energy than the old elevator in Grapevine and much less energy than the creaking elevator in Waco. The new elevator is more energy efficient. 

Four people in Grapevine continue to take the stairs. The four people who decide to walk up the stairs are still conserving energy in Grapevine but they are not conserving as much energy as the four people in Waco who take the stairs conserve because the elevator in Grapevine actually uses less energy than the elevator in Waco does for the same amount of service.

Clear as mud???.