Ten tips for saving electrcity

Our solar panels at front and the solar hot water system further back.

We have had a solar hot water unit for about 30 years. We had one on our old house and installed a new one when we moved to our home here. Solar hot water units still attract a government rebate in Australia and as hot water is one of the highest components of the electricity most of us use, it's a worthwhile exercise to save up and install one. Information about solar hot water for Australians is here. I would love you to add comments about rebates in other countries. Half way through last year we went a step further; we had some money, and with the assistance of the government rebate, we had a small solar unit - 1.5 kW, installed. We got excited about it and had visions of working our way towards saving money on our electricity bills. Here in Australia, and probably all around the world, the cost of electricity, gas and water have been rising a lot. We thought that with prudent use of our appliances and by keeping a careful eye on what we were producing with the solar panels, we'd slowly work our way towards a credit balance on our electricity bills.

That didn't happen. We were in credit on the first bill. Yes, $55 credit! I can still see it now. Hanno and I don't use a lot of electricity but we were not always like that. We slowly learned how to conserve this precious resource and we cut our electricity bill back to about $130- $150 per quarter, before our solar panels. In Australia most of our electricity comes from coal-fired plants so not only were we saving money if we cut back, we were saving carbon emissions too.

Some of our strategies might help you and if you contribute to this conversation in the comments, we might come up with a pool of great ideas that will help people all around the world. I am aware that many of these things are common place, but it's worthwhile repeating them because a lot of this about about developing habits - and that comes from repetition.

1. Get into the habit of turning off appliances at the wall. Standby power drains about 10 percent of your power over the course of a year. See if you can rig up your TV, DVD etc, to one power board and turn that one board off every night. Yesterday I read that these are the yearly stand by costs for:

• Printer/ Broadband Modem / Telephone all on standby but not used - $61.
• Home computer with printer on standby - $20.
• LCD TV, with DVD and PVR in average use and always left on standby - $45.

You can read that article about electricity costs for the average Australian home here.

2. Read the manuals that come with your electrical appliances, especially those with cooling or heating elements, and use them according to the recommendations. For instance, the best temperature for cost effective cooling a room with an air conditioner is 24C / 75F.

3. During extreme heat, and depending on security in your neighbourhood, keep some doors and windows open at night to let the cooler air in and close them during the day. This works really well if you're home is insulated.

4.  If you live in a country with a cold climate, make some window quilts to help keep the cold out and the warmth of the fire in.

5.  Hang clothes outside in the open air instead of using the dryer.

6.  Use the washing machine with full loads and in off peak times.  Here is a general idea of peak and off-peak times. For more accurate times, google you home state's household electricity peak times.

7.  When we have to replace an appliance, we look for the energy star system. We recently had to replace our fridge and after a lot of research we bought an Electrolux two door - fridge above, freezer below. We've been very happy with it and I have no doubt it helped us with that $55 credit.  Info about energy stars her for USA, UK, Australia and NZ, Canada  I tried to find European Union information but all I found were regulations (very frustrating). If you have a European site to share, please do so.

8.  When you're baking, bake several things at once, or one after the other. That allows you to use the heat you've generated without letting the oven heat up and cool down for once batch.

9.  I live in Queensland, and here we have a government program called Climate Smart. It is probably in every Australian state so google the name with your state's name to get the full details. At the moment, the service will provide the following for just $50, it's a wise investment:

• 4 standby eliminators and remote control
• Household power assessment by qualified electrician
• A wireless power monitor - you set this up in your home and it will show you how much electricity you're using at any time. This alone will help you save energy - you can see how much your washing machine is costing you and how much it goes up when you dry clothes in the dryer.
• 5 power saving light globes
• A hot water system adjustment, if yours needs it.
• Water and power saving shower head.
• A customised power and water-saving plan.

Hopefully a similar service is provided in other countries as well. Please let me know what government incentives are available in your country.

10.  Replace your old light globes with compact fluros. These can be expensive but well worth the investment. If you're on a tight budget, buy one a month until you have all your lights covered.

Concentrate on your big energy appliances first - dryers, heating, cooling etc. Moves towards reducing your electricity consumption are usually slow and it's one of those things that takes time to see improvements. But if you can make a plan to cut your usage, it will pay off because it looks like these charges will continue to rise in the future. Yesterday many of you shared your wonderful ideas by commenting. Please do so again and see if we can help others save both money and carbon emissions.