M
Martin Ochieng
Rethink your domestic energy consumption
Home based energy audit
Behavioural patterns that increase your electricity expenses.
From the lights left on in unutilized spaces to equipment plugged in and not in use, we need to re-assess. Every single minute means an extra watt consumed.
This translates to an extra watt-hour and eventually a charge for your personal consumption.
In essence, we are increasing on our domestic demand for energy and not efficiently utilizing what the system provides.
This is for a single home, picture an apartment in an estate with ten or more apartments located in a city. How much more are we wasting?
Now imagine the city having factories, institutions and other facilities, how much more would the loss be?
In essence whatever is being charged, is essentially going to waste. This is simply due to patterns that we are in a position to change.
These are action points that are within our control and which we can execute.
Overall energy landscape.
Over the last year, electricity demand has risen by 4.5%. This has been due to industrialization, economic growth and the rising need for cooling by developed countries.
Despite this, the energy sector faces major challenges such as supply chain constraints that has resulted to equipment shortages.
This has posed a challenge in onboarding new energy sources.
Affordability has also been a matter of concern, and the cost of electricity has put pressure on the consumers.
With the challenges faced, there has been a steady increase in the demand. The increase has exerted more pressure on the utility system hence more investment in
energy generation and operational expenditure.
The question that is left unanswered is on the matter of efficiency. How well can we use less energy to achieve our intended objectives?
This is both for the small-scale domestic consumer to the last scale industrial consumer. Are we generating more to waste?
That's the question we ought to respond to.
How your domestic consumption affects the system.
Case study: India power blackout, 2012.
In India, July 30-31, 2012, the entire country was plunged into a blackout affecting over 620 million people. This was caused by a severe overloading of the national power grid.
This event stands as the largest power outage ever recorded, disrupting electricity supply for nearly 9% of the world’s population at the time. Across two consecutive days,
widespread grid failures plunged more than 20 Indian states into darkness. Train services were halted, traffic systems failed, and hospitals were forced to depend on emergency generators.
The crisis exposed major shortcomings in India’s power infrastructure and prompted nationwide government action to strengthen the grid.
The correlation between the energy wastage and the stress on the utility system is directly proportional. The more wastage, the more the stress on the grid.
This is directly evident with the increased peak demand that heavily affects the system. In some of the situations, the utility system is forced to carry out load shedding
that majorly cuts off a section of the consumers to enable the system to operate within its capacity. This is to avoid a system trip would be more severe and would result
in a total blackout which has occasionally happened as in the case study above.
How behavioural change can save the situation.
At a personal level, we need to question on how efficiently we are utilizing every single watt-hour. This will enable us look into the energy usage patterns we have developed and how best we can change. Energy saving equipment and intentional behavioural adjustments would go a long way to ensure efficiency is achieved. Some of the traits we can adopt is as simple as unplugging of devices that are on standby and still consume energy and looking out for replacements on appliances that are not energy-rated. The simple adjustments can result in lower electricity bills, a reduced strain on the grid and lower carbon footprint.
Sensitization on the matter of efficiency should be top priority both at the domestic and commercial level. If we intentionally choose to audit our consumption and minimize wastage, we win.
Behavioural patterns that increase your electricity expenses.
From the lights left on in unutilized spaces to equipment plugged in and not in use, we need to re-assess. Every single minute means an extra watt consumed.
This translates to an extra watt-hour and eventually a charge for your personal consumption.
In essence, we are increasing on our domestic demand for energy and not efficiently utilizing what the system provides.
This is for a single home, picture an apartment in an estate with ten or more apartments located in a city. How much more are we wasting?
Now imagine the city having factories, institutions and other facilities, how much more would the loss be?
In essence whatever is being charged, is essentially going to waste. This is simply due to patterns that we are in a position to change.
These are action points that are within our control and which we can execute.
Overall energy landscape.
Over the last year, electricity demand has risen by 4.5%. This has been due to industrialization, economic growth and the rising need for cooling by developed countries.
Despite this, the energy sector faces major challenges such as supply chain constraints that has resulted to equipment shortages.
This has posed a challenge in onboarding new energy sources.
Affordability has also been a matter of concern, and the cost of electricity has put pressure on the consumers.
With the challenges faced, there has been a steady increase in the demand. The increase has exerted more pressure on the utility system hence more investment in
energy generation and operational expenditure.
The question that is left unanswered is on the matter of efficiency. How well can we use less energy to achieve our intended objectives?
This is both for the small-scale domestic consumer to the last scale industrial consumer. Are we generating more to waste?
That's the question we ought to respond to.
How your domestic consumption affects the system.
Case study: India power blackout, 2012.
In India, July 30-31, 2012, the entire country was plunged into a blackout affecting over 620 million people. This was caused by a severe overloading of the national power grid.
This event stands as the largest power outage ever recorded, disrupting electricity supply for nearly 9% of the world’s population at the time. Across two consecutive days,
widespread grid failures plunged more than 20 Indian states into darkness. Train services were halted, traffic systems failed, and hospitals were forced to depend on emergency generators.
The crisis exposed major shortcomings in India’s power infrastructure and prompted nationwide government action to strengthen the grid.
The correlation between the energy wastage and the stress on the utility system is directly proportional. The more wastage, the more the stress on the grid.
This is directly evident with the increased peak demand that heavily affects the system. In some of the situations, the utility system is forced to carry out load shedding
that majorly cuts off a section of the consumers to enable the system to operate within its capacity. This is to avoid a system trip would be more severe and would result
in a total blackout which has occasionally happened as in the case study above.
How behavioural change can save the situation.
At a personal level, we need to question on how efficiently we are utilizing every single watt-hour. This will enable us look into the energy usage patterns we have developed and how best we can change. Energy saving equipment and intentional behavioural adjustments would go a long way to ensure efficiency is achieved. Some of the traits we can adopt is as simple as unplugging of devices that are on standby and still consume energy and looking out for replacements on appliances that are not energy-rated. The simple adjustments can result in lower electricity bills, a reduced strain on the grid and lower carbon footprint.
Sensitization on the matter of efficiency should be top priority both at the domestic and commercial level. If we intentionally choose to audit our consumption and minimize wastage, we win.
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Mochumbe Sagini