Watts Your Watt

Inspiration

What inspired our project was the lack of transparency given to you in your power bill; we wanted to connect the consumer with a resource that could show them exactly where their power came from.

What it does

Our website takes your power company and your kilowatt hours and shows you what percentage of your power came from what type of energy sources, and how your kilowatt usage compares to the average household in Virginia.

How we built it

We used HTML and JavaScript to build the website, Canvas to make the graphics, and Python to plan the logic. For our data, we used a mix of data provided by power companies' Integrated Resource Plans and websites with publicly sourced data.

Challenges we ran into

Half of our team needed to learn JavaScript on the fly. We had to find proper data for the amount of different energy types used by each company, which is often obfuscated to some degree.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully learned JavaScript and implemented it with HTML and CSS. We also managed to navigate through long and wordy power company Integrated Resource Plans and cross-reference their self-reported data with data we found from other 3rd party websites.

What we learned

The data needed for this is hard to find, and consumers would struggle to find the information to make educated, eco-friendly changes to their power usage.

What's next for Watt's Your Watt

We want to expand our coverage to other states and eventually cover all of the United States or even the world. Potentially create a way to automate the process of adding more providers. Make it so you can also input your home's square footage and location, to make it so that your power consumption can be compared to similar-sized homes in nearby areas. We would also like to have more up-to-date and detailed information about the environmental impact of any particular type of energy.

Built With

• html
• javascript
• python-for-logic