How to Save £120 on your Electricity Bill
The easiest and most obvious route to saving money on electricity bills is to swich unused appliances off. But when you switch that television off do you press the red button on the remote control or flick the switch beside the plug?
It’s easy to believe that such a small amount of wasted electricity wouldn’t make a lot of difference to your bill, but leaving appliances on standy costs the UK £740m each year. There are numerous appliances now in our households that run on standby, making that flow of wasted electricity more than a trickle. It has been claimed by the Energy Savings Trust that if one mobile charger per household is left on standby, the energy wasted is enough to provide the electricity needs of 66,000 homes for one year.
Below is a table of household appliances and the associated cost of running them on standby. The cost of a kWh has been assumed to be 13 pence, with 5% added on top for VAT.
| APPLIANCE |
WATTAGE
|
kWh per YEAR
|
COST PER YEAR
(13 pence per kWh) + VAT@ 5% |
| Sky Box |
15 |
131.40 |
£17.94 |
| Printer |
15 |
131.40 |
£17.94 |
| Stereo |
10 |
87.60 |
£11.96 |
| PC |
10 |
87.60 |
£11.96 |
| Cordless Phone |
8 |
70.08 |
£9.57 |
| Answer Machine |
8 |
70.08 |
£9.57 |
| Microwave |
7 |
61.32 |
£8.37 |
| Mobile Phone Charger |
6 |
52.56 |
£7.17 |
| TV |
5 |
43.80 |
£5.98 |
| VCR |
5 |
43.80 |
£5.98 |
| PC Speaker |
5 |
43.80 |
£5.98 |
| Cooker |
5 |
43.80 |
£5.98 |
| Washing Machine |
2 |
17.52 |
£2.39 |
|
Total |
£120.77 |
Some of these appliances may not make it onto your own list, but consider what is missing; DVD Player, MP3 Player, Electric Toothbrush, Tumble Dryer, Games Console, Digital Camera, Electric Shaver and Power Tools. There is no doubt that the total cost of running appliances on standby in your household will be more than £120.
There are several proposals on how this waste of energy will be elimated on an international scale, including disabling or removal of standby buttons on existing appliances, phasing out standby buttons on new appliances, and limiting the standby power requirements for new appliances to 1 Watt (which works out at £1.16 per appliance per year). The most likely outcome is that appliances will simply switch themselves off.
Take a walk around your home and switch off those appliances not in use, it will save you over 10% of your electricity bill.
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