How To Save On Your Energy Bill This Summer
Summer in Australia is known for its beautiful long sunny days, family trips to the beach and hot weather. It is not often people think of summer and conjure up thoughts of energy Bills. However, the reality is, when summer rolls around our energy bills go up. Air conditioning usage goes up, pool pumps get a work out and the bills follow suit.
So, the question is how do you help reduce your bill without forfeiting any of your summer comforts?
These 3 actionable tips will help you get on the front foot of your energy bill before summer hits and help you do your best to avoid bill shock.
Buy An Energy Monitor
The first thing to do when you want to reduce your energy bills is to understand what is drawing the most power in your home and when it is drawing the power.
If you don’t know what is actually using energy, it makes it very hard to do anything about it. Things you may not even realise may be drawing BIG energy can be hunted down and understood.
Plus, very importantly, if you are ever looking at installing solar into your home your daytime and nighttime power usage significantly impact the payback period when calculating your solar systems return on investment.
Energy Monitors are quite readily available these days and very easy to install. There are a few different types on the market and can be as cheap as $50. However, around $100 will get you a good quality Monitor so you can start to understand what is really going on.
Install Solar
Solar Power is one of the most impactful things you can do to reduce your energy use in Australia. With Solar Rebates (which are actually called STC’s) and the low cost of systems these days, solar can heavily reduce your electricity usage and thus your bill.
With the high cost of power in Australia coupled with our climate, home solar power can really help you reduce your grid power consumption and cut down those bills.
Once installed the power your system generates is consumed by the appliances within your home. If there isn’t enough energy, your house will draw from the grid to make up for it. If there is additional power generated (which is quite common), it will get fed back into the grid and you will get paid a feed in tariff which will be credited to your next bill.
Switch Retailer
One of the easiest ways to save money and the one very often forgotten about. Loyalty to an energy retailer is rarely rewarded so swapping can be the best thing you can do sometimes.
Shopping around can pay serious dividends especially now you understand when you use your power (thanks to your energy monitor) and you can hunt down the right tariff to suit your usage.
An Australian home with 4 people in it uses on average around $2,000.00 of energy every year, it makes a lot of sense to do the right thing by your back pocket and save money where you can.
