Tag: lower energy

Are Your Appliances Draining Your Wallet?

~ jo-anngarbutt ~ Leave a comment

Many homeowners are surprised to learn that their appliances are silently draining their wallets. Appliances like space heaters, water heaters, and home air conditioners are the biggest culprits. But don’t worry, there’s a solution!

By making smart choices about the appliances, you buy and how you use them, you can significantly reduce your energy costs while helping the environment.

Energy Efficiency: Your Pocket’s Best Friend

Electricity is measured in Watts or Kilowatt (kW)  and electricity bills usually show charges by kWh – as it is a measure of electricity used over hours.

What are the benefits of paying attention to energy efficiency?

  • Cost Savings: Energy-efficient appliances consume less electricity, leading to lower energy bills per month and per year. Energy labels can help compare various appliance models being considered for purchase to help you save in the long run.
  • Product Longevity: Energy-efficient appliances often have longer lifespans, ultimately saving you money as fewer replacements may be needed during 10 years for example. It also lowers electric and electronic waste, benefiting the circular economy – less waste is generated!
  • Environmental Impact: Reducing your household’s energy consumption helps to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Do you know which household appliances are secretly draining your wallet? It’s time to shed light on your energy thieves. Before buying new appliances, understand their energy consumption. A little knowledge can save you a lot!

The following graphic illustrates typical energy consumption for common household appliances under high and low usage conditions. By analyzing this type of data for appliances you plan to buy, you can identify potential areas for energy savings over the coming years. You achieve this by making informed decisions about appliance usage and upgrade options and implementing the best energy-efficient alternatives!

Energy Labels

Energy labels are your secret weapon against sky-high energy bills. These handy stickers reveal how much energy each appliance guzzles. By choosing appliance models with the best energy ratings, you’ll not only save money but also help the planet.

How to read energy labels

Source: SEAI 2024

Energy labels reveal how much energy an appliance guzzles, helping you choose wisely. Look for the energy efficiency rating (usually A-G) – the closer to A, the better. This label (see example to the left) shows energy use in kilowatt-hours (kWh) per 1,000 hours. Multiply this by your electricity rate to see the appliance’s cost for every 1,000 hours it is in use. Knowing that, you can pick the appliance that saves you money over the coming years by reducing the amount of energy used!

Let’s do the math!

Imagine your new fridge has an energy label showing it uses 400 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity a year. If your electricity costs 30 cents per kWh, that fridge alone could add up to €120 to your annual bill. Yikes! This is why choosing energy-efficient appliances is a no-brainer.

Calculation example

Kettles might seem harmless, but they can secretly drain your wallet. These little appliances often cause energy spikes that can be easily spotted on your energy monitor. Let’s compare two kettles: Kettle A, an older model, and Kettle B, a newer, energy-efficient one.

The Kettle Challenge: Which Model Saves You Money?

Scenario: Boiling one cup of water (250ml)

Kettle A: Older model, less efficient, with a power rating of 3000 watts.

  • It takes 2 minutes to boil the water.

Kettle B: Newer model, more efficient, with a power rating of 2000 watts.

  • It takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds to boil the water.

Energy Consumption Calculation:

  • Energy (kWh) = Power (kW) x Time (hours)

Kettle A:

  • Energy consumed = (3000 watts / 1000) * (2 minutes / 60 minutes) = 0.1 kWh

Kettle B:

  • Energy consumed = (2000 watts / 1000) * (2.5 minutes / 60 minutes) = 0.083 kWh

The energy usage for Kettle B is less than the energy usage calculated for Kettle A.

Conclusion:

Even though Kettle B takes longer to boil the water, it consumes less energy due to its lower power rating. Over time, using a more energy-efficient kettle can result in significant energy savings.

The link below gives you free access to a simple calculation sheet for calculating the cost of using an appliance you have been thinking of buying. The sheet comes prepopulated with some numbers to illustrate how it works. Just type over the numbers in the blue blocks in the sheet using your own information per device/appliance – using your energy costs and the appliance/device energy label information. Use the sheet more than once if you want to compare more than one appliance or device based on energy efficiency ratings.

202408 Energy use calculation sheetDownload

Choose Wisely, Save Significantly

Investing in energy-efficient appliances is like planting a money tree in your home. They can slash your electricity bills without breaking the bank. Plus, you’ll be helping the planet one watt at a time. So, next time you’re shopping for a new fridge or washing machine, look for those energy-saving labels. Your wallet (and the Earth) will thank you!

Do you really need to print that?

~ jo-anngarbutt ~ Leave a comment

“”Is there a better way? Can you avoid printing that page?”

Photograph by Annie Sprat, Unsplash

Many project teams use tablets and television screens to project information during meetings for meeting participants to consider and discuss. And while we have cloud storage and the ability to access and edit or markup files from multiple devices, it appears that printing has not yet lost its appeal for some. If you are not yet ready to consider a working day without a printer, here are some ways to be more sustainable with the way you work on a day-to-day basis.

Removing Waste: Recycling

Have you considered what the end-of-life would be for that page you just printed and may be ready to throw into the trash bin soon? Why not set up a special bin for just collecting paper to be recycled? In some locations, secure bins are available which ensures that sensitive papers are securely stored until they are collected by the supplier and recycled.

Refills

Are you making use of a printer cartridge refill scheme? Instead of throwing used cartridges away, there may be suppliers in your area where you can get refills for your used cartridges.

And talking about printing cartridges – can you use only one colour – black? Having multiple colours may generate additional waste and perhaps you can save the colourful displays for virtual online documents?

Materials used

The paper you use for printing, is it made from environmentally-friendly recycled processes? Why not ask your local suppliers to advise you about recycled paper options available to you?

Habits

If you print on both sides of a page, you could be saving on paper usage and you could be lowering the weight of printed documents being shipped to recipients of your printed materials!

Fewer printers

Do you really need so many printers in your office? Or could you lower the ongoing electric power needs of printers and also encourage more physical movement of people during the day. Asking them to walk a little further in order to retrieve printed pages may be a great way to ensure they move out of a sedentary posture and increase blood circulation. Regular breaks and physical movement are great ways to improve physical and mental well–being at work.

Lower energy usage

Ensure that printers are turned off completely at the end of the working day and over weekends and periods of office closures. This ensures that no power is used in standby mode.

Consider digital solutions

Looking at the processes you use in your office – are you printing notifications or informational posters and is there a way to instead share it with colleagues, suppliers or customers digitally? For example – could suppliers download an electronic file from your website showing how you would like invoices prepared?

Understand your data and set improvement targets

Do you know who prints the most pages in the office? Is there an opportunity to engage with someone on printing more sustainably? Not everyone has been exposed to ways they could lower energy usage or how to avoid creating waste.. It could be great to have a discussion with someone about this.. Improving awareness is often the first step towards more sustainable practices at the office.

Getting together to set targets in your office like “We track our number of printed pages, and we strive to lower it by 10% this month compared to the previous month!” can be great ways to keep everyone focused on lowering your environmental footprint as an office..

In most cases, becoming more aware and conscious of ways that we can become less wasteful and generate less waste can be the first step toward being more innovative and finding new ways to positively impact the world and those around us. What will you do today to lower the waste you generate?