Saving Electricity

How Much Power Are We Using and How To Reduce It

Electricity is expensive and many people are using far more than they need to, in short we are wasting money. So how can we reduce the power we consume? First we need to carry out an audit of all the items we use and how much power each item uses. Below there is a list of the usual household items that people use in their everyday lives and the amount of electricity each will typically use. We also list steps we can take to reduce the power used by each item.

If we are clever we can reduce our dependancy on electricity and we can reduce the maximum power we need and the amount that we use. It is not difficult to considerably reduce our electricity bills.

To do this we need to take a long hard look at the things in our lives that use electrical power.

How much power do our appliances and electrical equipment use?

The following table gives the typical electricity consumption of the commonly used items of household equipment. Obviously the length of time they are used determines the amount of power we consume but it is probably more important at the present time to consider the peak power when many things happen to switch on at the same time. You won't use the electric kettle for long but it certainly knocks out the circuit breakers. Stop those peaks in demand and you won't need that 10 kilowatts of power to your house (10 kilowatts is 10 to 20 times what the average local house uses).

Item	Typical energy consumption	Options
Automatic Washing machine with electric heater.	2,500 watts Mostly in the heating coil.	Switch off the heating element, turn down the temperature setting or use solar heated water. Use a manual washing machine.
Electric kettle	2,500 watts	Get a smaller kettle and wait a bit longer for it to boil. Use a kettle on a gas stove.
Hair Drier	400 to 2,000 watts	Get a smaller hair drier. Shave your head.
Swimming pool pump	600 to 1,500 watts	Only run the pool pump for 8 hours a day. Use a solar powered pool pump.
100 litre storage water heater	1,200 watts	Use a gas water heater. Much better use a solar hot water system.
Air conditioner 1.5 PK Air conditioner 1 PK	1,120 watts 750 watts	Introduce cool design concepts in your house, insulate the house, get used to this beautiful climate, use a fan. Use “inverter” air conditioners.
Electric toaster	850 to 1,000 watts	Use the gas stove. Change your diet.
Electric Iron	300 to 1,200 watts	Go for the crumpled look.
Typical water pump	250 to 1,100 watts	Make sure the pump is not too large for your installation. Build a water tank to gravity feed your water and use a timer to fill it during the night.
Microwave	500 to 800 watts	Use a gas stove.
Rice cooker	400 watts	Use a gas stove.
Hot / cold water dispenser	350 to 500 watts	Use the kettle and fridge.
Manual washing machine	280 to 420 watts	Use solar heater water
Desktop Computer	150 to 250 watts	Use a laptop or a pencil.
Swimming pool light	100 to 500 watts	Do you really need them? Check the size you are using. Use LEDs
Garden spotlight	80 to 250 watts	Do you really need them? Use compact fourescents.
Refrigerator	75 to 140 watts	Use a gas refrigerator. Regularly defrost and keep the door closed.
Floor fan	60 watts	Open a window.
Television	50 to 133 watts	Talk to your family.
Ceiling fan	50 watts	Open a window.
Standard lightbulb (output 17 lumens per watt)	25 to 120 watts	Use compact flourescents or LEDs. Put timers on the lighting circuits.
Laptop computer	15 to 70 watts	Use a solar charger.
Halogen mini spotlight	25 or 50 watts	Use compact fourescents or LEDs.
Compact flourescent lightbulb (output 60 lumens per watt)	5 to 24 watts	Very good alternative to incandescent but watch for the mercury inside. Use LEDs.
LED (Light Emitting Diode) (output 100 lumens per watt)	Very Low	New technology which is improving all the time.

How Can We Reduce our electricity usage?

In our everyday lives temperature related energy use is the area where dependancy on electricity can be reduced most. Here are some ideas:

Do NOT use an electric ring for cooking. Much better to use gas.
Don't use the washing machine to heat water, connect it to a separate heater.
For water heating use a solar hot water heater or gas.
A new alternative is to use a heat exchanger in your air conditioner so that the heat being extracted in cooling your house is being used to heat water.
For refrigeration seek out efficient refrigerators. If possible use a gas refrigerator.
This is a beautiful climate, if we can get used to it we can get away from using air conditioners. Insulate the roof and walls, ventilate your house and use fans. If not insulate your house and use inverter air conditioners.
If you can, avoid toasters and hair driers.
If you have one make sure your electric water heater is not too large, 50 litres for a kitchen, 80 litres for one bathroom and 100 litres for two bathrooms.
Throw out that fancy electri kettle and get something with a more reasonable demand.

Next come mechanical devices such as water pumps and pool pumps

Run your pool pump only 8 hours a day.
Consider a solar powered DC pool pump.
Make sure your water pump is not too large, several small pumps may be far more efficient than one large one.
See if you can use PDAM government water supply.
Consider a water tower and fill it at night with a small pump.

To protect that expensive sound system or your computer it is a good idea to get a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply). These come in many sizes and have a battery, a charging circuit and a voltage regulator inside.

You plug the UPS into a power plug and then plug your electronic equipment into the UPS. The battery constantly charges and gives you a stable and uninterrupted supply. If the power goes off the UPS will beep to let you know and will supply around 15 minutes of power giving you time to safely close down your equipment. A UPS will also beep if the voltages drops to very low levels, a very useful thing in our present electrical situation.