By Bling Energy
September marks, for many families, the return to routine. Schedules return, days spent between work and school and also some energy consumption habits that, after the holidays, may go unnoticed.
Not always are the large appliances or the most evident consumptions that explain the value of the electricity bill. At home, there are habits that, repeated every day, can translate into unnecessary expenses or hinder a better use of the energy produced.
To help identify them, Bling Energy gathered some of the “hidden” consumptions that deserve more attention in daily life.
- Assume that a turned-off appliance no longer consumes energy
Even when they seem off, some devices continue to consume small amounts of electricity to keep certain functions active, such as clocks, indicator lights or network connections. A light or a display that stays on can be one of the easiest signs to identify. When the equipment does not need to remain plugged in, especially for several hours or at night, unplugging it from the outlet helps avoid this consumption.
- Keep chargers permanently plugged into the outlet
Leaving cell phone, computer, or other device chargers plugged in, even when they are not in use, is a common habit. Although modern chargers have a very low consumption when not actively powering a device, there remains a small energy expense that can be avoided. Individually, the impact is small, but it is another one of the small consumptions that, multiplied by the various devices in a home, can represent unnecessary energy expenditure.
- Leave the workspace on at the end of the day
With the return to routine, computers, monitors, printers and other equipment return to the daily life of many households. At the end of the workday, closing the laptop or turning off only the monitor does not necessarily mean that all equipment has stopped consuming energy. If they will be used again the next day, turning them off completely helps avoid several hours of unnecessary consumption.
- Do not take advantage of solar energy during the hours it is produced
For those with solar panels, the hours of highest production do not always coincide with the periods of highest consumption at home. With the return to routine, a large part of the energy can be produced during the day when the house is empty, while the consumptions concentrate in the late afternoon and at night. Whenever possible, schedule some equipment to run during the solar production hours to better take advantage of the energy produced at home. When this is not feasible, a battery allows storing the energy produced by the panels that is not used at the moment so that it can be used later, reducing the need to resort to grid electricity.
- Leave lights on in empty rooms
Throughout the day, it is easy to leave a light on in a room that is no longer in use. The consumption of each lamp may seem small, but keeping several lights on when not needed represents an avoidable expense. Turning them off when leaving a room is a simple gesture that helps reduce electricity consumption.
