Ways to Reduce Electrical Energy Consumption at Home

Electrical energy plays a pivotal role in our daily lives, from powering our home appliances such as laptops, stoves, and TVs, up to running big machinery in industrial sites.

Since most of the electrical energy we use to power our appliances comes from electrical energy supply companies, these companies charge us according to the amount of energy we use.

As an energy user, it is crucial to avoid unnecessary ways of using electrical energy that result in high electrical energy bills, which might put you over budget.

In this article, we are going to discuss ways to reduce electrical energy consumption at home while maximizing energy efficiency as follows:

1. Switch to Energy-Saving Lamps

Switching from high energy-consuming lamps, such as incandescent and fluorescent lamps, to energy-saving LED lamps can significantly reduce your monthly energy consumption.

2. Switching to Alternative Energy Sources for Some Appliances

Heating appliances, such as electric stoves and electric geysers, consume a lot of energy. These appliances have alternative sources of energy you can use at home.

For example, you can replace an electric stove with a gas stove and an electric geyser with a solar geyser.

When using gas energy, it is important that you use large tanks installed outside the house for your safety and to avoid buying gas at short intervals.

While the initial cost for gas stoves and solar geysers might be high, trust me, in the long run you will see the benefits; these appliances last for a long period of about 20 years.

3. Keep Inductive Loads to a Minimum

Most inductive loads are those with moving parts, such as water pumps, electric motors, washing machines, as well as fluorescent lamps.

Inductive loads introduce reactive power. Power is divided into two parts: true power and reactive power.

While true power is the power that makes our appliances work, reactive power does not do any work for us but is included in the total power.

By keeping inductive loads to a minimum or powering them at different times, you can reduce reactive power.

Reactive power can also be eliminated by adding a capacitor bank across the load, but this is usually done in industrial settings where there are a lot of electric motors.

4. Avoid Using Defective Appliances

Defective appliances we are talking about are those that give you electric shocks when you touch their metal casing.

These appliances have an earth fault, which causes some current to flow through the earth wire back to the supply, increasing your energy consumption.

To protect against earth faults, you can add residual current circuit breakers to your installation if they are not already installed.

Residual current circuit breakers (RCCBs) compare the current in the neutral and live conductors.

If there is an imbalance due to some other current flowing back to the supply through the earth wire, they trip off, signaling to you the presence of an earth fault in your installation.

5. Assess Your Monthly Energy Consumption

By assessing your monthly energy consumption, you can figure out the months when you use most of the energy, find out which appliances you were using, and then come up with corrective measures.

By putting all these measures in place, you can significantly reduce your monthly energy consumption.

If you have made it this far, you have made it. Consider visiting our YouTube channel; we have helpful electrical tutorials there.