Electricity — the benefit of civilization, but the cost of kilowatt-hours is gradually increasing, and energy conservation are becoming increasingly acute and important. What measures can made each of us to save is not an extra penny? Try to understand!
Culture to use gadgets and household appliances
To begin with, which practically nobody does that — disconnection from the mains chargers, TVs, home appliances. Charger left in the socket, continues to work, this is called idle current and it depends on the circuitry and power the device. It is any type of power sources, transformer, and pulse. Have any modern household appliances, e.g. microwave, air conditioning, TV or TV the tuner has indicators – displays, LEDs, etc. They also consume energy, and the power source, for example, when the TV is turned off with the remote control" continues to operate in standby mode. Suspend mode is a standby technology, it can expect the signal from the remote, set the timer hours. On this subject the network has a lot of research, we collected and averaged the data obtained on the consumption of some devices in idle or standby mode and mixed them into one list:
- Satellite receiver or tuner in digital TV — 5.7 W (50 kWh/year);
- - Game console — 0.7-1 W (8,7 kWh/year);
- - TV — 0.3-0.5 W (4,4 kWh/year);
- The computer is in hibernate mode 3-4 watts (35 kW/year);
- - Monitor — 1W (8,7 kWh/year);
- - Laptop — 0.5 W (4,4 kWh/year);
- - Coffee maker — 1.5 W (13 kWh/year);
- - Washing machine — 0.1 watts (0.9 kW/year);
- - Air conditioning — 3-5 W (44 kWh/year);
- Router (he's always in a running mode, and not in another)— 3-5 W (44 kWh/year).
If in each case the figures are not particularly savings, but the amount of work a considerable amount. Besides, any unused appliance that you leave connected to the network is a danger of ignition and fire. So unplug appliances if you are not using them. You should also not keep the PC or laptop on all the time. A computer monitor can consume 100 watts or more, even if it's just not valid (and during the games, consumption may increase and half a kilowatt), the average laptop is 40-60 watts. By the way, we can conclude that if there is no need for a stationary machine – the laptop will burn a smaller amount of electricity during operation. If you don't need a computer or laptop computer, send it to sleep or hibernate mode, then its consumption will drop to a few watts. Same applies to tablets to mobile phones. Site access statistics shows that most of the traffic in 2019 – mobile device. In addition to the small size and autonomy note and profitability. For example, in the tablet installed battery capacity of almost 9000 mA/h, voltage of about 3.7 V, which tells us that it is stored power up to 33 W/h. the Manufacturer claims up to 10 hours of continuous operation, which is confirmed by tests and reviewers. What does it mean? The fact that a full charge takes up to 40-50 Watts of electricity, considering efficiency of the battery charger and consumption by the tablet during the charging process. This energy is enough for a whole day of work or surfing the Internet, then as a full-fledged computer consumes twice as much per hour. It is in any case not advertising Apple equipment from the manufacturer, but only an example. The same can be said about any other device – will vary only in the number of hours and the number of watts required to do so. Prioritize and clearly define which device you enough for the job.
Before leaving, extinguish the light!
If in 2019 it is difficult to say something new about the efficiency of led and fluorescent lamps, it will not be superfluous to remind about the need to efficiently use the light. Forgotten for the night lighting significantly hit on the wallet, even when using led lamps. Let's say you leave that on for a night light in the bathroom or in the hallway, how much is it? If we talk about the led lamps, the greatest demand is for light bulbs with a capacity of 7-10 watts, will take a larger value. Before bed you forgot to turn off or intentionally left the lights on in one room, people sleep about 7-8 hours, then:
10*8 = 80 watt/hours per night and natural light, and in the year:
80*365=29.2 kWh
But if the lights are on in several rooms all night? And add to this devices are in standby mode, about which we spoke above? If you are using incandescent bulbs – these numbers can be multiplied 10 times. In addition to the neglected light bulbs not all people understand the difference between General and local lighting and chandeliers twist in powerful lamps. Significantly reduced the cost of lighting, if you use a table lamp, and the total (top) lighting to be less bright. This will help you a dimmer or a breakdown of the lighting in groups. Also install motion sensors to light in these rooms helps to save money, how to do it we spoke in another article.
Counter
The installation of tariff meter lot significantly helps to save money. There are several options – two zone and three zone billing. For example, such tariffs:
- - For one-tariff meter is 5.38 g per 1 kW/h
- For the two zone pricing: night (23:00 to 07:00) of 2.29 g per 1 kW/h a day (07:00 to 23:00) 6.1 p per 1 kWh;
- For three tariff meters night of 2.29 g, semi peak area (late afternoon and in the evening from 10.00 to 17.00 and from 21.00 to 23.00) is 5.38 g and in peak time (morning and evening from 07:00 to 10:00 and from 17:00 to 21:00) to 7 rubles per 1 kW/h.
Who benefits? Almost everyone who works a day job and a night at home – will be cheaper washing, bathing (if you use an electric water heater), cooking (if electric stove). Also many of the tariff counter will reduce the amount of over heating, if you have a private house or apartment with electric auxiliary heating system (induction boiler, boiler with Heat Energy by Heaters, etc.). Yes you can, while you are not home, reduce the capacity of the boiler or to completely disable it (with a mild cold), and come home to turn on and all night to warm the home. Using a Wi-Fi relay, or timer, or other means of home automation to make this process automatic, that is, the power will be adjusted without your participation. That is, you can configure the inclusion of heating for an hour before coming from work, not to go into the chilled apartment.
Energy efficiency
The concept of energy efficiency is large enough and in the eyes of ordinary people is uncertain. In most cases, under the energy efficiency and energy savings, people understand the establishment of led or energy-saving bulbs and purchase LED TVs and monitors. However, it is not so. Improving energy efficiency is one of the main contemporary tasks of engineers and scientists, and it applies both to exploit the potential of new technologies and devices from old actions (same inverter motors for compressors of refrigerators, washing machines, or led light sources) and a different approach to the usual control elements and circuitry, for example, higher frequency switching power supplies, optimization of operation modes of the semiconductor switches with the aim of increasing the efficiency of the instrument as a whole. Thus all the equipment is divided into classes of energy efficiency, it is denoted by Latin letters from A to G, but most current devices with higher classes A+, A++, A+++, and they are described in this document as "the Directive on the marking label energy efficiency No. 2010/30/EU".
The energy efficiency class is determined on the basis of volume of electricity consumed in the process and other factors, for each type of technology has its own scale. Not to go into detail we show the difference in classes in a real example. On Yandex.market selected 2 different refrigerator with good reviews and rating but different energy efficiency class. The difference of consumption almost in 2 times. But the price is half. But with modern technology the "energy efficiency" is not limited. To save energy it is important not to waste energy in vain. This is especially true for those who heat their homes with electricity. If you have a thin wall and pulls from under the baseboards and Windows – no matter what boiler and how rational you make the heating circuit – will still be to heat the street! Insulation, sealing joints, the use of modern materials in construction significantly reduces heat loss. To give specific figures are unsustainable because they depend on the specific house and other factors such as the quality of the dock walls, laying blocks, sealing all places where it can blow (cold bridges) and give the frequency and strength of wind in your area.
Five rules save
So, to summarize:
- 1. Switch off appliances and chargers from the network, do not want every time to pull the plug? There are extension cords, plugs, and even plugs with switch.
- 2. Use energy saving or led bulb.
- 3. When buying a new refrigerator or washing machine, pay attention to technique of the highest class
- 4. Install the tariff meters.
- 5. Inspect the home for heat loss (now, many experts suggest a review with a thermal imager) and insulate the problem areas.