How Hungry is Your Appliance
By Eco Thrifty Living
Visit this blog for some eye opening facts
about appliance usage
Switch off and save cash
By Peter Hanson
Those who had an infra-red survey of their houses carried out in
February were also loaned a pack of useful things to help them save
energy. One of the most useful of these was a hand-held electricity
meter which monitors how much electricity your house is using at
any one time. You can walk around the house switching things on and
off and see how much electricity each is using.
What's surprising though is how hard it is to get the meter to
read zero. Even with no fridges, freezers, lights, heating pumps or
anything obvious at all on, our meter wouldn't go below about 45 to
50 watts. Given that every Watt costs about £1.30 for a year, 50
Watts would cost about £65.
After a bit of research we found out what was consuming these
extra Watts. Some things you wouldn't want to ever switch off
anyway ,- things like the mains powered smoke alarm (5 Watts), door
bell transformer (4 Watts), Broadband (5 Watts), cordless phone
charger (2Watts), infra-red detectors for security lights
(4x5Watts).
There were some surprises though,- for example the electric oven
used 10 Watts, the food mixer (plugged in and switched on at the
socket) used 4Watts, the washing machine 2 Watts, microwave 3 Watts
and even the toaster was using 2 watts! The TV and digibox together
used 9Watts.
So it seems as though anything that has electronic controls is
likely to be using power all the time but things like a kettle that
just have an on/off switch shouldn't. So if you can switch
something off at the wall socket without causing difficulties, it's
a good habit to get into.
Last but not least if you'd like to take part in our next Energy
Tracing session, please contact Charles
Mossman.
How we can close seven expensive power stations and you can
save yourself some money
By Tom Langdon Davies
Every weekday from November to the end of February, starting at
around 3:30pm, electricity demand in the UK rises, and by about
5:30pm it is 7GW (seven million kilowatts) higher. That's about 300
watts per household on average. By 8pm, demand has usually fallen
back to its pre-peak level.
It takes seven large power stations to supply this peak, over
and above those required during the daytime plateau.
The reason for the peak is simple. At this time, offices shops,
factories are still working, and people are starting to come home
from school and work. So workplaces and homes are using electricity
at the same time.
Some large businesses and factories are paid to reduce their
electricity demand during these periods. But not enough to prevent
the peak and the seven power stations' worth of electricity it
requires.
We could close these power stations and associated transmission
lines without replacing them, at a saving of between 7 and 10
billion pounds
What can we do about it?
Surprisingly, perhaps, the answer is simple, cheap, and will
save you money with little or no loss of convenience.
It's simply this-
- Switch off your immersion heater for a few hours if you have
one. If possible, from 3:30pm to 8pm but particularly around 5:30pm
for as long as you can without inconvenience.
- Don't switch on your washing machine, your dishwasher or tumble
drier during these hours.
- Set your freezer and fridge to go off for some or all of these
hours.
If 3 million of us did it, we could close down one power
station.
If all 23 million households in the country did this, we could
close down seven power stations.
What will it cost me?
If you do it manually, nothing.
But to make your life really easy, you could fit a £20 timer to
your immersion heater. A side effect will be that you will use less
electricity. I calculate that I have saved about £50 over a
year as a result of fitting one. So the timer could pay for itself
in less than six months.
To learn more about the way in which we use and generate
electricity, and for many other ways to save money, visit
theintelligentplug.com