| Interesting article. I work in the field of heating/cooling energy consumption and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of the clo before. > Precisely how much energy can be saved by lowering the thermostat depends on the outdoor temperature. In temperate climates, lowering the thermostat just 1° C (or about 2°F) yields an energy savings of about 9 to 10 percent It does depend on the local climate. For anyone interested in calculating the savings you have made if you have already done something to reduce your heating/cooling energy usage, like turning down the thermostat or installing new windows or insulation, a little while ago I wrote an explanation of the process that is usually used in the industry: https://www.degreedays.net/calculate-energy-savings And for anyone just thinking about stocking up on high-clo clothing rather than having actually done it, you could estimate how much you could save as follows: a) get say 12, 24, or 36 months of energy-usage data from your smart meter or utility bills (making sure not to include any figures that were estimates made by the utility). b) get a baseline regression formula as described in the link above, which will give you an estimate of your current heating base temperature (which should be lower than your thermostat temperature). c) work out your hypothetical new heating base temperature, by reducing the current heating base temperature by the number of degrees that you intend to lower the thermostat by. d) get, say, 5-year average heating degree days in both the current base temperature and your hypothetical-lower base temperature. e) plug them both into your baseline regression formula (separately) to get i) your average annual energy consumption now and ii) your predicted average annual energy consumption if you lowered the temperature. f) compare those two figures to get an estimate of how much energy you'd save in a typical year. I will admit that estimating 9-10% savings per Celsius is a lot more straightforward :D |