There are several ways to conserve energy and save money on electricity bills, so you can spend the money on something more useful for you.
To save money on electricity bills you need to first get organized and motivated because only this way you can reduce your energy consumption and save money, activity that will also protect the environment.
Read on to learn how to conserve energy at home.
At the beginning, you need to know that the things that are producing heat in your home will consume the largest amount of energy.
The dishwasher, the dryer, the water heater, your central heating system, the washing machine, an air conditioner that works on heating, the toaster, the microwave, etc. all are great consumers of power, so you need to understand how to use them to save energy and money.
Best Practices to Save Energy at Home
It is very important to first understand what is the energy consumption of each device (appliance) used in your house.
1. Get Informed
The first thing to do when planning to save energy is to inform yourself.
You need to understand the energy consumption of each appliance in your house to realize what are the biggest consumers.
You can do this by reading the manual of each appliance or by searching online for the user manual of the device.
From the user manual you will understand how many watts (W) or kilowatts (KW) your appliances are consuming per hour (how much energy they consume while working).
The biggest consumers in the house will have the highest values of energy consumption and these are the devices that cost you the most to use them.
Once you find the biggest consumers in your home, you will know where to cut back to make the most important savings on your energy bill.
2. Understand Your Electricity Plan
When you signed the contract with your electricity supplier you have chosen an electricity plan (or you have been automatically assigned to a plan).
Your current electricity plan is only one option from a list of plans available for residential consumers, so in most of the cases the electricity plan used today is not the best plan to help you in your attempt to lower your energy bill by consuming less energy.
Many utility companies provide today nightsaver plans, which means that the energy consumed during the night is cheaper than the energy consumed during the day.
Such an electricity plan will usually have a higher energy cost during the day and a cheaper cost during the night (starts after 8 P.M. or after 10 P.M. in some cases), which means that you can conserve energy (save money) by consuming more energy during the night and less energy during the day.
You need to know what is the time of the day when you have the highest consumption of electricity in the house because only this way you will be able to choose the energy plan that suits you the most in your attempt to pay lower energy bills.
3. Choose The Best Plan For You
If you are not sure what is your current electricity plan, just call the utility company and ask them.
Once you know what is your electricity plan (could be a nightsaver plan or a fixed tariff that is identical all the time), you need to adjust your energy consumption according to the plan.
Use more power during the night and less during the day if you have a nightsaver plan, and if you have a fixed tariff just learn how to use the main consumers in the house following a program that helps you to save energy (stop from using the devices all the time, and use them less often).
Once you know how much energy is consumed by your appliances and also by the heating and cooling system you will understand what energy plan is the best for you in order to save energy.
You should check every year the electricity plans available at your energy supplier because prices usually change and new energy plans become available for consumers that could help you to save power and money.
4. Use Your Appliances In A Smarter Way
When using the washing machine, try to wash your clothes at a lower temperature.
In case that your clothes are not extremely dirty, you can wash them with cold water because they will be as clean as they were being washed with warm water.
Again, if your clothes are not particularly dirty, you can use the quick wash option to clean them quicker.
Try to hang your clothes outside and let the fresh air to dry them instead of using your dryer.
I mentioned above that any heating device consumes a lot of energy, and your dryer makes no exception.
Create a habit and switch off any light or device that you are no longer using when leaving the room.
When leaving the room, obviously you will turn off the light because if nobody remains in the room after your departure, there is no reason to light the room and consume electricity for nothing.
Learn to conserve energy and money
You need to also switch off your laptop and the TV if you leave the room for a longer period of time and also during the night because these devices consume electricity (a small amount) even when you don’t use them.
If you are a person that is permanently cold, you need to understand that by lowering the temperature of the thermostat by only one degree, you can save power, and to avoid the difference in temperature inside the house you can add an extra sweater.
Check your meter every day and even a few times during the day to understand how your energy consumption is evolving during the day, and also what was the energy consumption of your house during the night.
By checking the meter weekly and monthly, you can see if you are saving energy or not.
Only the meter will tell you how much you will pay for electricity next month.
Watching the evolution of the meter during the month is enough to set your mind on saving more energy.
5. Buy Newer Appliances That Are More Efficient
Always try to have inside your house devices that are using newer and greener technology.
New and smarter appliances will always cost more, but the money spent on the new technology will be recovered on energy bills.
I’m not saying that you need to replace all your current appliances used inside the house with newer ones because this could be a great financial effort for your wallet.
I am only trying to say that when you decide to buying a new appliance or device try to buy one that is newer and more efficient.
Always try to stay informed about new technologies because you will find this way that you can heat or cool your house in a way that is different and more efficient.
6. Use Renewable Energy
Another good way to lowering the energy bills is to generate your own energy.
You can do this by installing a solar power system or a wind turbine for home use along with a battery system that will store the energy produced.
Don’t forget about the federal incentive for renewable energy and for any local subsidies that are provided by the authorities to help you get a solar PV system or a small wind turbine at a lower price.
7. Earth Hour
Earth hour is an annual event when for one hour, everyone is supposed to switch off all the devices that are consuming electricity consumption in the house (or at work) and do activities that do not involve electricity consumption such as reading, walking, jogging, working in the garden, etc.
You can create many more Earth hours this way during the month and even during the week when for one hour you switch off all your electricity consumption.
Let’s speak about my house now to see how I managed to save energy during the winter.
How I Managed to Save Energy During the Winter?
I live in a one-story house, and I need to heat during the winter five rooms, one kitchen and two bathrooms.
In the area where I live, I have chosen to use only electricity and fresh water (no wood and no natural gas or other fossil heating source), and this is the reason why I use only electricity to perform all the activities inside the house.
For cooking, I use an electric stove and an electric oven and both consume a lot of energy.
For warm water, I use a large water heater that consumes the largest amount of electricity in the house.
Fpr heating and cooling, I use five air conditioner units that work on heating during the winter (Daikin Air Conditioner Unit with Inverter).
On the ground floor, I need to heat a surface of 970 square feet, and at the first floor, I need to heat a larger surface of about 1,098 square feet.
To heat the ground floor, I use two Daikin units (12,000 BTU each), which are big enough to heat the entire space.
On the first floor, I use three Daikin units (9,000 BTU each) that are easily heating three rooms, one hallway and a large bathroom.
Daikin AC Units wit Inverter
These Daikin air conditioner units work well even if the outside temperatures drop below -4 F (-20 Celsius).
The supplier told me that the Daikin units will work well on heating only if the outside temperatures are above -18 Celsius and if the outside temperatures drop below that value the units will stop producing heat.
However, during this winter, a couple of days I had outside temperatures (during the night) below -4 F (-20 Celsius) and even -7.6 F (-22 Celsius), but the units worked well providing heat all night long.
The house is insulated with thick insulation, so the heat produced by the units remains inside the house as much as possible.
During December 2017, I realized that the cold temperatures that will follow in January, will increase my energy bill pretty much.
To understand who’s the biggest consumer in the house during the winter, I started to uise different devices in the house and I checked the meter after one hour of usage.
Understanding your energy demand
This way I managed to understand that not the heating system is the main consumer inside the house (even during the winter), but the water heater was the most thirsty for electricity.
In December, with outside temperatures of 14 F (-10 Celsius), the heating system (5 Daikin air conditioner units with inverter working on heating) consumed about 1.5 KW per hour.
The water heater managed to consume 2.5 KW per hour, so I decided to use the water heater after a certain program.
I have an electricity plan with fixed tariff, so there is no reason to consume more power during the night because the cost of electricity is the same during the night as the price paid for electricity consumed during the day.
This way, I started to switch off (unplug) the water heater during the night (between 10 P.M. and 8 A.M. next day), and in January, even if the outside temperatures were lower and the heating system worked hard to ensure a cozy environment in the house, the energy bill was lower by 30% compared to December (when the water heater was on 24/7).
Lower energy bills
My energy bill (electricity bill) in January 2018, dropped to $259 from $369 in December 2017.
I use the same program for the water heater even now in May when we have outside temperatures like in the summer, and this way I pay lower energy bills compared to last year in May (around $80, which is lower by 40% compared to last year even if the price of electricity has been slightly increased in the meantime).
We are using many other appliances in the house that are consuming electricity (dishwasher, two refrigerators and one freezer, 3 kitchen robots, 3 laptops, 3 TV’s, a washing machine and many others), but I never thought that the water heater that works only on electricity is the one that consumes the most amount of power in the house.
Conclusion
Doing this every day will save even more energy, more money and also the environment.
