Cultivate energy saving habits
LITTLE FALLS – Save money by creating new habits when it comes to electricity usage in the home and business environment.
Energy conservation starts with changing habits and thinking twice about using appliances and lights over peak hours, says founder of EnergyClub, Dr Koot Naudé.
Naudé explained that it is possible for the normal citizen to live up to 80 per cent off the grid by making one or two changes in the way they think about, and use electricity.
“It’s important for people to know their electricity usage per month, and modern technology like the new Smart Meters that are currently being rolled out by City Power helps to monitor and work out your electricity usage every month.”
He explained that geysers use more than half of your electricity per month and the viable solution to assist with cutting down on your bill is to switch to solar. Naudé said, “Solar works well with geysers but it’s still costly to switch your entire house to solar as you need to store the power somewhere and for that you are going to need batteries and lots of them. They tend to be expensive so there is still cheaper solutions to saving power.”
“The cheapest and easiest solution to cutting down on your usage is to change all of your older type of florescent bulbs to energy saving incandescent bulbs that last longer and they will cut your usage by 25 per cent.”
He added that people should try to use less electricity during peak hours – 6am to 10am in the mornings and 4am to 8pm in the evenings.
“Some food for thought: if 900 000 households cut down on their electricity usage by 15 per cent then they will save the same amount of electricity generated by a power station during a single day,” concluded Naudé.
Details: www.energyclub.co.za
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