How will electrification reduce my carbon footprint? And will it work even if I don’t use renewable energy?
We didn’t come up with this concept, but we’re spreading the gospel around Ohio: electrify everything! What that actually means is that if you can tap into low-carbon or carbon-free electricity (spoiler: you can), and use that electricity for as many household uses as possible, you’ll make a significant dent in your climate footprint. The best part is that you can have a real impact even if you don’t install solar or buy renewable energy, although of course those steps can help.
How does that work? Well, the basic explanation is that when you use oil and gas for your car, or home heating, or hot water, that inevitably produces greenhouse gases – methane leaks when you extract and transport fossil fuels, and carbon dioxide when you burn them. In Ohio, using electricity instead equates to lower total greenhouse gas emissions, even with coal and natural gas generation currently supplying over half of the region’s electricity, and more reductions to come since the grid is getting cleaner every year. Tapping into carbon-free electricity through home solar or purchased renewable energy will reduce your climate footprint even faster (and potentially save you money along the way when it comes to solar).
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a series of pie charts we’ve come up to show how a relatively typical Ohio household – living in a single-family home with two cars and central HVAC – can lower their climate impact by switching to electric vehicles, a heat pump for HVAC, a heat pump hot water heater, electric cooking, and electric clothes drying. First, a “normal” household in Ohio today:
Total CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) Emissions = 11.9 Metric Tons Per Year
Next, here’s the emissions from the same household if they switch their cars and home appliances to electric versions — still staying on the default grid supply of electricity, without using carbon-free resources. Taking these steps lets this household eliminate more than half of their carbon emissions, or 6 metric tons per year (the green section of the chart):
Total CO2e Emissions = 5.9 Metric Tons Per Year
Finally, if the same household takes the additional step of moving to carbon-free electricity — more on how to do that here — then they can effectively eliminate their annual greenhouse gas emissions:
Total CO2e Emissions = 0 Metric Tons Per Year!
The good news is that all of these steps are achievable — not necessarily with a snap of your fingers, but that’s why we’re here to help!