Current flowing to and fro

My electric bill has been absurdly high for about 10 years. A while back the state told me I had one of the highest per capita electricity usages in Massachusetts, and gave me a brand new refrigerator as a prize. (Really. It’s in our basement.) Energy auditors have twice told me that my electric bill isn’t mathematically possible. I’ve had electricians try to figure it out, the power company has tested and replaced my meter, and still my electric bill has remained impressively insane.

Well, rewiring the house may be paying off. Our latest bill shows that our usage has been cut roughly in half. We don’t know which piece of the rewiring may have solved the problem, so there will always be a bit of mystery to it. And we don’t know whether the improvement is permanent, though another check of the meter two weeks after the bill seems to confirm the usage reduction. I know I can’t get that $10,000 in unnecessary electricity costs back, but can we keep the refrigerator?