Energy Conservation Methods

With the increasing cost on energy in Jamaica, it is imperative that we make changes in our life style in order to reduce our overall consumption and hence energy bills. I have listed below some practical steps which have proven to work. Now with everything in life we have choices, we either continue what we are doing today and continue to cry at our bills from JPS, our we can make some changes and stop putting more money that we absolutely have to in the hands of JPS.

1. Firstly make sure you are not being taken for a ride by the meter reading which means you absolutely must learn how to read your meter. You want to pay only for what you consume, not just what the meter reader stay from out your gate and record.

2. The item in your home which consumes the most electricity is more than likely your refrigerator which runs 24hrs per day. This is one of your biggest opportunity for energy savings.
Quite a bit of refrigerator comes with a moisture control switch, it has two position, one which says " reduce moisture" and the other says " energy savings". This switch is meant to reduce moisture by the door and between the freezer and refrigerator door.
Switching off this on your refrigerator can save up to 1Kwh per day or 30kwh/mth.

3. Your water heater (30/40 gals) are rated between 4kw and 4.5kw which means they consume around 4kwh. Now lets say the heater is powered 24hrs per day, it does not mean it consumes 24 x 4kwh, but instead the cumulative time the heater runs would probably be 25 % of the 24hrs per day. Your water heater is operated via a thermostat, which shuts off the heating element when the preset temperature setting is reached. Typically this is factory set to 120 deg F.
So your 40Gal heater would probably consume 0.25 x 24 x 4 = 24 Khw/day or 720Kwh/mth

First I used to switch on my heater in the early morning before I go for a shower, then switch it off immediately after showering. It would not then be switched on until around dinner time to allow for hot water for washing the dishes and showering.
Even with that I would forget and so I simply turned if off permanently, so I never have to worry about it.
WATER HEATER CONSUMPTION = 0 Kwh/day.

Initially I thought how would I be able to bathe so early in cold water, but hey I got used to it.
How about hot water for dishes, well I did two things here. First during meal preparation there is quite a bit of heat that is lost from your stove via radiation and convection. To use this "waste" heat I place a pot containing water next to the burners that are on. The water absorbs the waste heat, which is good enough to rinse grease from the dishes. If no cooking is taking place a pot of water on the burner will be hot within two minutes which saves significant amount of energy when compared to electrical heating!

4. Air Conditioning is really nice to have and my 9000 BTU/hr unit really kept me cool between 10pm when I go to bed and 5am when I wake for work.
A 9000 Btu/hr unit is rated at approximately 2.6 Kwh so over the time that I am sleeping and needs the comfort of cool air I am consumption approx 9kwh per day. I am working on the fact that the compressor which consumes the most power runs 50% of the time. This could be higher if you lose temperature via, doors, windows, floor , roofing etc.
I switched off the darned thing and bought a standing fan which is rated at 65w or 0.065Kwh. In so doing I have moved my cooling from 270Kwh/ mth to only (0.065 x 7 x 30) 13.65 Kwh/mth.

5. TV, Dvd player, cable box and other electronic devices use vampire power or standby power. I plug all these into a surge protector and switch off that switch when I am not at home. The saving here is small and is around 7.5kwh per mth.

6.  I replaced my desktop computer consisting of  a 19" CRT monitor and CPU tower with a laptop computer, the desktop tower and monitor combined are rated in the region of 350w. The laptop consumer roughly 65W for a savings 81.5%. Now I needed a replacement PC and opted for a laptop instead ie I did not just purchase for energy savings.  So my consumption per mth for computer moved from 52.5 Kwh to just 9.75 Kwh  ie down by 42.75 kwh.

Folks the above methods have cut my bills by more than 50% and the fact is I have really not given up too much in order to keep more money in my pocket.

The question is are you willing to give up anything, in exchange for lower energy bills.
There is what you call the the "suffering price" ie the price are you willing to pay to keep JPS out of your pocket, that is your "suffering price".

Note: Wives love hot water and so you may take a beating for switching off (permanently) the heater.
What you can do here is to set back the thermostat on your heater from the factory setting on 120 deg F to between 99 -109 deg F, most people will not be able to tell the difference here.
What this does is allows you to reach your desired temperature ealier that at 120 def F, which allows your heater to switch off earlier this saving some energy.

Good luck.