What is costing you the most on your electricity bill? Is it the geyser? The air conditioner? Or the washing machine? This week, the Powertime team focused on ways of tracking your energy consumption so you can adapt and change your bad habits. To do so, energy monitors are the most affordable and most practical devices you can find. Energy monitors are small tabletop devices that help you discover how much energy you’re using in your home, and how much it is costing you. Research shows that they can help you save between 5 to 15% on your energy bill. Check our monitors here.
How do energy monitors work?
You simply install them on your main distribution board and get instant measurements of many units of energy are used (kWh) for a settled time period or real time, how much carbon emissions you generate and how much you’re paying for electricity per hour. Some energy monitors, like the Efergy ones, also have many additional features: you can set daily electricity usage targets or alarms to alert you when you have used a set amount of electricity.
How can I use energy monitors to reduce my bill and my footprint?
Lord Kelvin, Physicist and Engineer, said once “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”
An energy monitor alone can’t save you any energy – but it will make you aware of just how much energy you’re using, so it is a great tool to help you change your behavior and cut your electricity bill. With the monitors, the true effects of leaving multiple appliances on stand-by, or leaving the lights on become very tangible.
This is a report you can get by using energy monitors. You can measure your electricity consumption throughout time and compare it to a previous period… You can get a lot of different information that allows you to set goals. For instance, if you notice your electric consumption is still high while no one is in your home during a week, your goal is obviously to cut consumption from appliances on stand-by not necessary (geyser, TV…); by knowing that fact you can then unplug your appliances before leaving for holidays.
What else can I do with an energy monitor?
An energy monitor estimates your monthly bill based on your usage. You can compare it with your utility bill. (top right data array)
