Knowing exactly how much electricity you use is essential if you are going to introduce an effective power saving campaign at home and save money. Your electricity bill will give you the details on what your tariff is.
According to De Wet Zwarts of Solar Geysers, working out what each appliance uses and tracking its impact on your monthly bill is easy.
The wattage of each appliance can usually be found on the back of an appliance or included in its packaging. The wattage then needs to be multiplied by the number of hours that the appliance is switched on for in the average month. This figure tells you how much electricity the appliance uses in a month.
Subtracting this figure from the total watts used tells you what portion of your monthly energy the particular appliance is using.
In South Africa, the average home uses 1 100 kilowatts a month.
Let’s look at a 200-watt appliance that’s used for 60 hours a month. Total electricity use is 200×60, which works out to 12Â 000 watts, or 12 kilowatts. Once you’ve worked this out, you can calculate how much each appliance is costing you and can cut down accordingly.
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