For example, I was surprised to see how much our electronics (stereo, amplifier, TV, etc.) in the living room use, even when off (some devices are older, with high standby currents). It motivated me to put everything on a timer that only turns power own in the evenings, since that's the only time they get used.
It's a small thing, but small things add up.
I was surprised to learn that a timer itself also uses power. I borrowed a Kill-a-watt from the library and found that an 2 decades old timer uses 2.3W while a newer one uses 0.6W. That tells me that I should just keep the old timer for the rare occasions.
If a new timer is $20, and you're paying the US National Average for electricity of $0.165 / kwh. The new one is 0.6 and the old one is 2.3, for a 1.7 watt difference.
Doing the math, $20/$0.165=121.212kwh, or 121212 watt hours / 1.7 watts per hour = 71301.2 hours / 8760 hours in a year (not counting leap hours) = ~8.1 years for the device to pay for itself in savings.
If you're worried about the environment, then it's wasteful to take a moderately efficient system and upgrade it. If you're worried about cost, then you're not saving that much money. If you're worried about overall value for your effort, there are better things to focus on.
Even if it were perfectly efficient (0 watt standby) then it would still take 6 years to pay for itself if it were $20.
So you got 8 pounds to account for which at UKs minimum wage is about 1 hours worth of work?
I'm guessing a big chunk of the 60kWh I'm using over your baseline is the kettle! :D
No idea how you use so little lol.
We (2 adults, 2 seniors, 2 small kids) blow thru 350-400 kWh on hot water alone. Another 500-600 kwh on car. Remaining 300-400kwh is cooking, lighting, tech, etc. Same average 1200kwh per month.
Take the car away and it's same 175kwh per month per person (summer here so no heating needed).
Average monthly use a house like that in Britain is 225kWh.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice...
I think the main difference is the prevalence of electric heating and cooling in different countries. We have a ~1400 sq ft old house in Vermont with wood heat and no air conditioning, and use about 250 kWh many months, although this jumps about 50% if we plug in an outdoor hot tub in the winter.
Our personal usage is probably dominated by an electric heat pump water heater. Do the British numbers typically include hot water, or is this usually gas? Also, what is the "multi-rate" line in the page you link, and why is this average higher? And how many people choose that?
"Economy 7" has existed for decades, and allows a sub-circuit of the house to be energised only between roughly midnight and 7am (with an offset for each house to avoid the grid collapsing when 10 million storage heaters turn on simultaneously!)
Typically the cheap rate energy would be between a half and a third of the day-rate energy.
Where I've lived (Midlands, South East) it's just been a cheaper rate at night, so you set the dishwasher, washing machine etc to run at 4am or whatever. It's not a cost saving unless you can do this.
I'm not familiar with storage heaters, though. I don't think I've ever heard of one being used in the US. For others like me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_heater.
The remaining difference will be the result of the big European push for energy-efficient appliances, the American preference for larger appliances, that houses are smaller in Britain, and British people have less money. (All these are related.)
source: I live in Brazil