How To Save On Your Electricity Bill

You have most probably noticed that your electricity bill easily gets out of control, especially during winter. This is a great reason to save money on your electricity usage. With South Africa’s power supply struggling to meet everyone’s need, we will need to reduce  consumption to reduce strain on the national grid, or, you can look for an alternative energy supply…

WE HAVE LISTED FOUR WAYS TO BOTH CUT ENERGY COSTS AND HELP AVOID LOAD SHEDDING

1 – INSTALL GAS FRIDGES AND FREEZERS

Installing gas fridges and freezers, will minimize food spoilage when the power goes out. 

Gas fridges use the heat on the gas burner to produce the cold inside the refrigerator. The heat is applied to the ammonia and water solution in the generator, and then flows through the separator and goes to the condenser, which dissipates heat and converts it into liquid. The liquid ammonia flows up to the evaporator and mixes with hydrogen gas and evaporates, which produces a colder temperature through heat absorption.

2 – INSTALL GAS STOVES

Gas stoves use roughly 20% of your electrical needs. Gas stoves and ovens may be expensive at the beginning to install, but overall gas is cheaper to use and creates heat in an instant. Having a gas stove, cuts down on cooking time, as the oven or stove does not take as long to heat up as an electrical stove does. Majority of new gas ovens and stoves are fitted with Flame Failure Devices, which means that if the flame is extinguished for any reason, it prevents the build-up of gas inside your cooker and kitchen. 

3 – INSTALL GAS WATER HEATERS

Electric geysers are known for using a lot of electricity, roughly about 25 – 35%, and is in general left on 24/7 in most homes. You only need hot water on demand, so there is no need to keep it on all day. Rather install a gas water heater, which only heats up water when required. A gas water works by heating up the water when a tap is opened. The cold water flows through the gas water heater and is detected by a sensor, which ignites the gas burner and heats the water in the heat exchanger. The hot water then exits the heater and travels directly to the tap. There is no water that needs to be stored and heated up all day in a tank like a normal geyser.

4 – SOLAR POWER

Solar energy uses solar panels made of silicon cells that takes the suns energy (DC) and then converts it to AC through an inverter. It will then go to deep cycle batteries that stores the converted energy for you to use when needed. 

You can run a household on solar panels and have a very energy-efficient home. Upfront it can be very costly to install, as you require the solar panels, an inverter, as well as the batteries needed to save the converted energy for you to use. Solar energy must be used in an instant, hence why it is important to have batteries to store the excess power during the middle of day and to provide the electricity in the evening and during cloudy weather when needed.

On solar energy, you can run energy efficient light bulbs, along with energy efficient appliances such as washing machine and tumble driers with an A+ or above rating, for the best power saving.