How to reduce electricity consumption

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Simple tips to help you pay less.

If your energy costs do not bother you and you do not want to save rubles and kopecks, these tips will not be useful to you. This article will help the responsible owner find out if everything in the farm is optimized for the rational use of electricity.

If you don't burn the lights day and night and don't try to cool the entire neighborhood with air conditioning, your electricity bills won't go down significantly. However, as a result of reasonable savings, a good amount accumulates in a year.

To follow some of the tips, it will be enough to carefully analyze and change some habits. Other recommendations will require some actions for the reconstruction of the apartment and additional expenses. For example, to buy new lamps. But the costs will quickly pay off and save you money.

Lighting

This is one of the main consumers of electricity. We use light every day. But how rational is it?

Economical lamps

Let's find out how economical such lamps are. Let's arm ourselves with a calculator and calculate.

The usual 100 W incandescent lamp can be replaced with an LED lamp of the same brightness with a power consumption of 12 W. Let's find out how much these 88 watts help to save if, on average, a light bulb is on 4 hours a day during the year:

0.088 kW x 4 h x 365 days = 128.5 kW h.

Or in monetary terms at a rate of 3.5 rubles / kWh:

128.5 kWh × 3.5 rubles / kWh = 450 rubles.

Please note: we have calculated the economic effect of using just one lamp. And if there are ten of them in the house? The amount immediately increases to RUB 4,500. Impressive.

Local lighting

A chandelier hanging in the center of a large room is a beautiful thing, but ineffective as a light source. Far corners are not sufficiently illuminated. Often the owners try to compensate for this by using more powerful lamps in the chandelier. The counter spins faster, but the corners are still in shadow.

It is much wiser to use local lighting. A small floor lamp or even a lamp on a clothespin do the job much better, and consume less electricity. A comfortable table lamp on the bedside table, a floor lamp near the armchair, portable lamps - all this saves electricity and protects your eyesight.

Clean shades

This advice is trivial, but always relevant. Dusty shades can absorb up to 30% of the luminous flux. Take your pick: spend 10 minutes dusting or working on the counter.

Appliances

You can often find radical and therefore impracticable advice. For example, buy only economical A ++ class equipment. But this is far from always possible, if only because of the crazy prices for these devices. They will pay off only in 50 years. Agree, not an option.

Let's take a better look at how to reduce energy consumption with the equipment that already exists.

Fridge

This is one of the few household appliances that is turned on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The refrigerator is a heat pump. It pumps heat from the inside of the refrigerator to the outside. Consequently, the operation of the device will be the more economical, the less heat gets into it. That's why:

1. Try to use the refrigerator so that its door is open as little as possible. Arrange the food inside in a convenient order so that it doesn't take half an hour to search.
2. Do not put hot pots inside, let them cool beforehand.
3. All containers with food must have lids. During condensation, water vapor releases tremendous energy, then it settles on the walls and turns into ice. This also generates heat. The defrosting system melts the formed ice, which again consumes additional energy. Fridge steam is evil.
4. If the refrigerator is next to a heating pipe, buy thermal insulation from a building hypermarket and wrap the pipe with it. The outside heat only harms the refrigerator.
5. In the cold season, you can reduce the load on the refrigerator and store some of the products on the balcony.

Refrigerators are very different, so it is difficult to name a specific amount saved. But let's say that as a result of your efforts, the refrigerator uses 15% less electricity. This means that now, for almost two months a year, it operates on the saved electricity.

Plate

If your kitchen is equipped with a gas stove, there is less hassle. But try to use it so as not to overheat the air in the kitchen and not saturate it with steam.

The electric stove is one of the most power hungry appliances in the house. If used correctly, you can save a significant amount:

1. Only turn on the stove during cooking and use the lowest power setting.
2. Try to always cover the food you are preparing with a lid, as it takes a lot of energy to evaporate the water.
3. An electric kettle is more economical than usual, use it. It has less heat loss, and it also turns off automatically.
4. Do not pour a full kettle if you do not need that much boiling water. It is more rational to boil just as much water as is necessary for making tea or coffee.
5. The multicooker is especially economical. If you haven't got one yet, buy it. It automatically maintains the cooking temperature at a minimum sufficient level and switches off immediately after the end of the program.

Water heater

Water has a high heat capacity, so a lot of electricity is consumed to heat it. In order not to waste it in vain, use these tips:

1. Set the temperature regulator to the minimum required water heating. With this operating mode, heat losses will be the smallest.
2. Turn off the hot water tap when not in use.
3. When leaving home for a few days, turn off the storage water heater completely.

Various electrical appliances

The most noticeable savings are provided by the rational use of powerful electricity consumers. But you can save a lot on little things.

Modem and all sorts of little things

It would seem sheer trifles. But let's count first.

The power consumption of most modems is about 6-10 watts. 0.07 kW x 24 h x 365 days is spent per year = 61.3 kW h. This is more than 200 rubles.

How long have you been using the modem? During the day you are at work, and in the evening you surf from your smartphone. As a result, the modem is practically unnecessary, but it works all the time. It is better to turn it on only with your computer.

Such unused devices that are continuously connected to the network can be found in every home: radio tape recorders, stereos, game consoles, satellite receivers. Go through the house and turn off what you rarely use.

Regular maintenance of equipment

Yes, often the recommendations of equipment manufacturers greatly complicate and increase the cost of life, if you follow them literally. But letting things go is the other extreme.

The task is not to scrupulously follow the recommendations. It is much more practical to keep the equipment in optimal condition. Let's list some obvious measures that contribute to the rational use of energy:

1. Descale the washing machine, kettle and coffee maker periodically.
2. Regularly remove dust from the computer system unit.
3. Shake out accumulated dust from the vacuum cleaner before it fills up to capacity.
4. Clean the air conditioner filters.
5. Defrost the refrigerator.