How to save electricity?
The rapid rise in electricity prices over the last few months has painfully shaken many households and made homeowners think about saving. Is the current heating system the best? Are your household appliances economical enough or should they be replaced with new ones? Should underfloor heating be switched off...??
We turned to Siim Soplepmann, CEO of Diotech, a green energy solutions company, with questions about sustainable electricity consumption:
‘In the grand scheme of things, there are two ways for domestic consumers to conserve electricity: saving and investing,’ he says.
As electricity prices will continue to fluctuate in the future due to the diversification of sources of energy production, and the average price is expected to remain higher than it has been so far, every homeowner could train themselves to monitor the electricity exchange price and, based on that, to use larger electricity consumers (appliances, heating, etc.) accordingly. There are many websites in Estonia that provide real-time electricity prices for the following 24-hour period.
‘The rule that electricity is cheaper at night and on weekends, and more expensive during the day, no longer applies,’ says Soplepmann. ‘At the moment, the price depends on the supply/demand ratio as well as generation and transmission capacity. It may happen that on some sunny day the electricity price is cheaper than at night.’
Switching your electricity supplier, he says, is of little benefit:
‘You can always ask for prices and compare; however, in my experience, the products from different vendors are essentially identical. Saving is the most important thing, but to save, you need to understand what your biggest domestic electricity consumers are.’
Water heater and electric floor heating
If we exclude those households that are heated solely by electricity, the biggest electricity guzzlers in a typical Estonian home are, for example, water heaters and electric floor heating in bathrooms, hallways, and kitchens. Everything else – appliances, lighting, and consumer electronics – falls well below these two.
Siim Soplepmann recommends limiting the use of boilers and underfloor heating, or investing in energy-saving solutions, as the financial impact is greatest in the case of these two consumers. One saving option that requires no investment is to manually switch your electric boiler on and off.
‘Raising or maintaining the temperature for each degree represents cost, so it makes sense to keep the water at the lowest possible temperature. I, for example, have it set at 47 degrees. Certainly, many people have their boilers on maximum, with the water at 55-60 degrees, but you should find the level that best suits the consumption habits of your family. Of course, the most economical solution is a boiler of around 40 liters, which you can turn on or turn up to a higher temperature an hour before you shower. In this time, the water will warm up enough for you to shower for ten minutes. The rest of the time, the boiler is either switched off or running at the minimum setting, for example, 35 degrees.’
If a small investment is possible, he recommends buying an Internet-connected controller for around EUR 100, which can be plugged into the water heater and calculates the exchange price when heating water. Since the market price is known a day in advance, a smart controller can manage water heating accordingly.
‘There are about ten different solutions on sale, including Themo, an Estonian-developed solution that offers similar, exchange-price-based thermostats for floor heating or water heater control. How much these tools can save is very easy to calculate. The savings are significant.’?
Lighting
If anyone is still using old incandescent bulbs, they should be replaced quickly, as incandescent bulbs waste around ten times more electricity than new LED bulbs. The latter convert almost all of the electricity consumed into light, while incandescent bulbs are only capable of producing light from one fifth of the electricity, the rest being converted into heat.
‘My recommendation is to buy cheaper LED bulbs because the lifetime promised for more expensive ones is sometimes not realistic. The more expensive bulbs will burn out just like the cheaper ones,’ says Soplepmann.
Home appliances
The next thing you should look at is household appliances because even though they consume less electricity, there is also the potential for unpleasant surprises, of which the owner is unaware.
‘There are plug-in meters costing around EUR 10, which show how much electricity one home appliance or another consumes. If the product label on the appliance states that its annual electricity consumption is 300 kWh, but the meter shows 100 kWh after one month, there may be a fault with the machine that is not apparent, but which has significantly increased its energy consumption. The older the device, the more likely it is that such problems can occur,’ says Soplepmann.
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‘Once the problem has been identified, a decision must be made as to whether the equipment will be replaced, repaired or used less.’
But how can you save money on cooking?
‘The oven and the stove are such small consumers that saving money on them will not have much effect. If you have a wood-burning stove at home, you can of course cook on it. I live in the countryside myself, and I have that option, but I don’t cook on it to save electricity, I cook on it when a fire has already been lit under the stove,’ he says.?
Electronics
In standby mode, electronics do not have very high energy consumption, and therefore the impact of disconnecting them from the mains every time they are used does not show up on the electricity bill. However, it can provide some savings over the course of a year, so whoever wants to can make a habit of unplugging.
Different electrical devices can be conveniently set to switch on and off using a smart socket, which is placed between the socket and the device. The prices of the smart sockets are in the EUR 10–20 range. With the smart plug, you can turn your tech on and off via your smartphone or set the time periods during which your device runs. Better quality smart plugs also show electricity consumption.
However, according to Soplepmann, replacing an old desktop computer with a newer notebook computer will definitely have an effect. Old computers use a fair amount of electricity for cooling.
‘New laptops have very good batteries that last 8–10 hours. In a nutshell, you can fully charge a battery when the electricity price is low and work with it all day,’ he says.
?What to invest in?
If you are able to make bigger investments, it makes sense to do so in two places: electricity production and building insulation.
‘There is no point in replacing one heating source with another; the investment is considerable, but it will not deliver the desired long-term results,’ says Soplepmann.
‘If you have already chosen electric heating, there is not much else to do but heat less and when electricity is cheaper. Replacing an electric boiler with a gas boiler or a pellet boiler may seem sensible in the short term; however, the prices of all non-renewable energy sources – including wood, which is not renewable in the best sense of the word – are on the rise. Put simply, domestic consumers are competing with large electricity producers for raw materials. If they need to buy gas to generate electricity and there is a shortage of gas on the market, gas prices will inevitably go up. In the nineties, electricity was cheap and many people switched from central heating to electric heating. The Russian crisis led to the removal of cheap Russian electricity from the market, leading many people to switch from electric heating to gas. But soon the gas price started to rise too. So, there is no point in tying yourself to a source of energy that is not renewable, because ultimately their prices are going to go up anyway.’
The energy sources that no one can control or raise the price of are wind and solar:
‘Wind energy can essentially not reach domestic consumers. Efforts have been made to develop small-scale wind turbines, but the problem is that the wind cannot be predicted. However, it is possible to predict how many hours of sunshine a year there will be, for example, in Tartu or Saaremaa. Thus, there is only one suitable solution for the domestic consumer in terms of renewable energy – solar energy. It’s up to the homeowner to decide whether to choose solar collectors, which heat water or solar panels, which generate electricity and heat water, for example, with the aid of an electric boiler.’
Most homeowners, however, are not in a position to invest in both insulation and solar panels.
‘I would start with solar because that way I can control the main cost item, which is electricity,’ says Soplepmann. ‘Also, insulating a building requires thorough calculations, as with current construction and material prices, the effect may not be the same as before.’
A quick summary
Start by identifying your biggest energy consumers and see if you can reduce their use.