Most of us likely don’t give a lot of consideration to our power bills. Your utility sends it, you pay it, and afterwards you forget about it until the following month. However, out of nowhere you notice that your bill has bounced up or even multiplied – what is happening?
The current high prices for coal and gas are not the consequence of a single “shock event” on either the demand or supply side. Rather, they are the product of a mix of supply and demand forces that steadily tightened markets over several months, if not years. In 2014-2015 and then recently in 2020, commodity prices for fuels dropped, as a result of which investments in oil and natural gas declined. This has made supply more sensitive to the kinds of extraordinary situations that we are witnessing today.
Apart from increase in tariffs for every unit of power we use, the other factor of rising power bills is that we are generally using more power day by day. And while we can’t easily go about managing geopolitics lower tariffs (although that would be fantastic), what we could do is manage how much power we end up using on a daily basis.
The initial step is figuring out why your bill has bounced. In this article, we will look into 6 typical reasons for increase in power bills and what you can do about them.
- Not the right kind of lights Nowadays, you have a pretty long catalog to choose from when it comes to buying light bulbs: from radiant bulbs, halogen bulbs, minimal bright light bulbs (CFLs), to light-transmitting diode (LED) bulbs and smart bulbs. And not all bulbs work the same or use the same amount of power.Next time you are out for a lightbulb, search for ENERGY STAR-ensured LED lights (in fact, for any appliance). These bulbs have been tried and tested to severe protection prerequisites, and they can help bringing down your power bill quite a bit.
- Old appliances, old woes This one is straightforward – more seasoned apparatuses are less productive than new machines, which straightforwardly influences your energy bill. Newer efficient machines use somewhere in the range of 10-half less energy than their less-proficient partners. But that doesn’t mean we go out and replace them. Rather ensure periodic maintenance of your refrigerator and AC units to keep everything working in top-notch conditions.
- Air conditioners and space heaters Heating takes a ton of energy and so does cooling. The way you go about your indoor climate can likewise raise or lower your electric bill. When the outside temperature changes, the go-to approach for most of us is to climate control our indoors to be as warm or cool we‘d like to be. It’s hot outside today? Kick up that AC!Firstly, we tend to overuse our air conditioners. Moreover, regulating indoors is a pretty wasteful method to keep our bodies warm and nice. For each degree that you put off your AC, you can save around 6% on your energy bill. So whenever you’re cold, toss on an additional a sweater instead of switching on the heater!
- Your social life 🤝 electric bill Beyond decorative lights during Diwali or Christmas, there are those times in a year when you wind up hosting a couple of gatherings. You often cook somewhat more, you have lights on in more rooms, and you are up somewhat later than most other days; leaving the lights, fans and the dishwasher longer.Along with guests, you’ll likely to invite a bigger electric bill. While this may not be a reason to worry or something you need to transform, it assists you with understanding the reason why your bill has expanded. Maybe try more outdoors stuff to mix things up.
- Changes in your energy useApart from seasonal changes and festivities, there could be different explanations behind changes in your power use. Have you added another gizmo to your home as of late? Adding a heater or another TV can bring about huge increments on your energy bill.
- Vampires (not kidding, for real) Heading out of home, most of us often switch off the lights and air conditioners to save energy while we’re not there.Yet that’s not all the appliances that are ‘online’ at that moment. Aptly termed, vampire sources are stuff that stay connected constantly and sips power even when they are idle. Think of your TV, refrigerator, WiFi router, desktop computer and so on. These gadgets draw tiny amount of energy, but constantly over long periods. Even when you leave your phone charger on the outlet without charging the phone; it still keeps draining power.
The easiest no-brainer fix to this, is to switch off most things, or in case of refrigerator or thermostats, lower down the intensity. Try keeping a leaving-home-checklist listing down all of the outlets to keep an eye on.
(Talk in reference to the oil and nat gas stuff discussed above, talk about energy dependency and cost of energy and how solar plays a large role in that)
