My Emissions for 2022 and Our Electricity Production

Two years has passed since my last annual update... This year, a lot of my focus has been escalation of the unjustifiable war against Ukraine. 

Even if Sweden is not directly involved in the battles of the war, the aggressor has made explicit demands that Sweden (along with Finland, Moldova, Ukraine and several NATO and EU members) shall be subjugated to the aggressor. We are all affected by this war and we must do everything needed to help Ukraine stop the aggressions and make Europe a continent under the rule of law again. 

My reaction to the war has focused on four areas:

  • Energy efficiency - This year, I'm not the only one to be obsessed with energy efficiency. I have been reducing my electricity consumption to offload the power grid and to prevent blackouts. More about that below.
  • Supporting refugees - I have re-joined a volunteer group in my area, that is giving support to refugees from Ukraine and other countries. I've also been a team leader in that group.
  • Financial support - Donations of money for drones for ammunition clearing, medical supplies, electrical generators, food etc. I'm not donating money to weapons, even if I understand that in this war, weapons will be needed - it is better that my government will coordinate the military assistance with Ukraine and other countries that are supporting Ukraine.
  • Resiliency - We have bought firewood for the winter (useful when the electricity prices peaked in December) and a power bank with solar panels (having solar panels to the house will not give power to us in a blackout - for safety reasons the PV will power off the house in that case). Increasing our ability to handle large scale emergencies is a priority.

Our Electricity Consumption

After a full sunny year with solar panels, we have had slightly more electricity production than predicted. With the energy savings that we have made, we have had a surplus of 2.5 MWh this year. The surplus would have been enough to provide our old apartment with electricity for one year and to drive a Tesla Model S from Sweden to Portugal and back to Sweden again.

The last year we consumed 12.2 MWh electricity - a 23% saving compared with 2021. The consumption corresponds to 80 years of manual labour (a worker can give 75 W of mechanical power over time, 8 hours per day, 50 weeks per year). Our consumption is a bit lower than the average for our kind of house.
Our consumption before we installed PV.
We were three in the house that year, before we got our second son. 
We've done the following to reduce the power consumption:
  • Installed solar panels in 2021
  • Had a year with lots of sunshine
  • We bought a new air-to-air heat exchanger (the old one stopped working). As a heat exchanger operates at ~400% efficiency, we have increased the power/target temperature on that so that it can offload some electric radiators (100% efficiency).
  • We have also replaced some old light bulbs with LED (yes, it matters).
  • We are also using the conservatory that is connected to our house as a heat source during spring and fall. So we are actually using the greenhouse effect to combat the greenhouse effect
  • Using the firewood stove with care. We are using proper fire wood, but using a stove will still generate some nasty gases and particles that will increase the global heating. We used the stove more frequently in early December when the power grid was under pressure.
  • We have also adjusted some of our power consumption to off-peak hours. We don't dare to use the washing machine, dish washer or battery chargers when we are sleeping however. If something breaks, we want to be awake when it happens.
  • Using our electric bikes to work (10 and 14 km) when there is no ice and snow on the roads.

Personal Consumption Based Emissions


This year, my personal consumption based emissions were 3.3 tonnes - an increase from the 2.6 tonne value of 2021. The reason is some consumption of electronics and that I eat more meat. It is still below the Swedish average, even after adding the public emissions. The sustainable level of emissions is 1 tonne, so I'm still far above that level.

As before, I won't give any New Year's resolution but I'll keep monitoring my energy consumption.

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