Electricity tariffs are increasing every year, and so is the budget you have to put in to energy. This is unfortunately not going to change for the better. In cooperation with Powertime, and other top energy technology suppliers and experts in the country, Hippo’s blog published a detailed article, “Experts Advise How to Cut your Electricity Bill”. Here is a summary of it.
Which devices use the most electricity?
At the end of the month, when you receive your electricity bill, you know how much you have to pay; you can compare it to the previous periods and see the fluctuations. However do you know why you are paying that amount, why the bill is fluctuating from a month to another, and whether or not you are wasting a lot of energy?
If you want to save energy and money you will have first to fill this lack of transparency regarding your energy consumption. See below the estimations of Gavin-Andrew Froneman, director of Monarch Climate Solutions and affiliate of the eco-friendly site lovetostay.co.za:
Research has shown that better understanding of your household’s personal energy information is likely to save you 5 – 15% on your monthly bill, whether you are using prepayment or receive electricity bills. In addition to that, not only you are going to reduce your electricity bill, but you are also going to contribute to the energy demand decrease, meaning that the supply would possibly finally match the energy demand and so that Eskom would be able to alleviate load shedding.
How does our country compare to others?
South Africa is looking for solutions after problems have occurred (tariffs increase, load shedding) and to date, has not been energy efficient, due to the fact that until recently electricity was cheap. South Africa has one of the worst CO2/kWh ratios in the world. However these statements have to be qualified, since South Africa is compared to Europe or the USA who already have a long tradition of saving energy since the electricity is considerably more expensive there.
Six ways to save
- Track your consumption
Use an energy monitor, such as Efergy monitors that you can buy on Powertime store to better understand your consumption and electricity usage.
- Light management
Ensure to limit your lighting usage to what is required – switch off any lights when you leave a room, or limit the number of lights that are on to only what is required. This will ensure that your electricity usage is more efficient.
- DIY solar heating
Investigate cheap alternatives such as making use of PVC Piping to heat water through absorbing energy from the sun. However, before implementing, ensure that it is installed outside of the building to reduce the risk of water damage in the event of anything going wrong.
- Change your mind-set
Unplug all appliances when not using them, use hot water only when really needed and use it sparingly, limit the use of electric heaters or air conditioners to only when required…
- Embrace affordable, modern tech
Install LED light bulbs instead of halogen, and make use of geyser and pool pump timers.
- Optimization and conservation
Set your fridge, freezer and geyser at the proper temperature:
- Fridge between 2° and 5°
- Freezer between -20° and -22°
- Geyser around 55°
Let’s consider that a household, previously consuming around R200 worth of electricity a week, has installed a suite of energy saving technology, isolated the house properly and uses energy monitors.
- Firstly, thanks to the awareness of energy costs due to the energy monitors, the behavioural changes of the household will decrease the bill by an average of 10%. So now the bill is only R180 per week.
- Now if the consumer has a good thermal isolation, he can save up to 16% on heating and cooling power. The weekly bill costs R 151,20 (R180 x 84%).
- The house is equipped with solar water heaters, reducing 40% of the bill linked to water heating. The gain on the bill is R200 x 12% (percentage of the bill linked to water heating) x 40% = R 9,60. So the bill now shows R 151,20 – R 9,60 = R 141,60.
- Now if you switch all your lights to LEDs, you save 90% of electricity used initially for lighting: R200 x 12% x 90% = R 21,60 spared. So the bill becomes R 141,60 – R 21,60 = R 120 weekly.
The calculation after that depends mostly on the products used by the household but in summary installing new, affordable energy saving technology can save up to R80 per week in that example.
So now you are prepared for the winter electricity bills. Save electricity and you will save money. You can also read more about saving electricity and money from your geyser here.