Hi Guys,

I hope that you have had a good day today.

Today I’ll be looking at calculating the cost of your existing energy consumption as an initial step to design your renewable home energy system as well as reducing your current energy needs.

If we wish to use renewable energy for our home then it would be a good idea to know what our current energy usage is. Basically carry out an audit of your energy usage in order to establish a base point from which to calculate your load requirement for your solar panels and wind power.

Consider each appliance in your home and its energy use. Some appliances like kettles, toasters and the like draw a considerable amount of power when used but at the same time are used for a short time each day.

Once you know what your current energy usage is you can take steps to start reducing the amount of energy you use.

For instance, I know that it’s a lot less hassle to dry our clothing in a tumble dryer than on a washing line. However to dry a single load can take up to between 70 minutes to 140 minutes. Assuming that, like us, you have on average of 7 loads in a week, therefore with a 3.3 kWh/cycle (my current tumble dryer energy consumption), assuming a 12-hour constant tumbling time per week, you will be using an approximate 2059.2 kWh a year. This costs me around £186.77 per year.

I can probably save up to half the cost by putting the washing on the washing line and spend the money on myself instead.

One of the changes that is relatively easy to make concerns the illumination of your home.

When considering the illumination of your home you should consider the following:

• The general lighting of a room;
• Localized or task lighting i.e. concentrated light for activities such as reading, sowing and cooking; and
• Accent or mood lighting to create atmosphere or to focus attention on certain objects or areas.

For instance I in parts of my home I initially reduced eight 50-watt lights to 25 watt and then reduced them even further to 2-watt LED lights. For one thing the 50 and 25-watt lights needed replacing regularly whilst I have yet to replace a single LED light.

A simple calculation shows the savings made by doing these changes:

Running the 50 watt lights for 3 hours a night I would be using 1200 watt hours per night i.e. 438 kWh per year. Using the 25-Watt bulbs I automatically halved that. However, with the 2 Watt LED light bulbs my energy use for this room has dropped to 17.52 kWh a year; a cost saving of £38.14 at current electricity prices i.e. £0.0907/kWh. Now it might not sound like a lot but one should bear in mind that this was for just one room.

As appliances need replacing they are replaced with appliances with better energy rating. I look at the energy rating of the appliances as well as the price when comparing new appliances. For instance I had to replace our condenser tumble dryer and I opted for a vented tumble dryer as there was a 0.5 kWh difference per cycle.

Each of these small savings add up in the end and can make quite a difference to you pocket over time.

Each small saving made this way reduces the load requirement of your renewable energy, which in turn means less solar panels, and energy storage requirements.

As always, I wish you everything I wish myself.

Until the next time.

Alain

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