Ask HN: Anyone hacked their power bills? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Anyone hacked their power bills?

3 pointsdeevus6 comments

I'm interested in the kind of things hackers have done to lower their power bills.

This is keeping in mind that I don't have a budget for much spending as a student.

Are LED lightbulbs the way to go? Does swapping out a 60W globe for a ~5-10W LED really lower your bill much at all? I need to know what kind of affect it could have before I outlay the cost of buying all LED for instance.

How much does lowering your hot water temperate affect power bills? I recently lowered ours from 70-60 degrees celsius by recommendation from a friend, but I'm not too sure how much it is affecting our bill.

We try to switch appliances off at the wall if we're not using them. I have an energy saver connected to the TV that cuts power to the Raspberry Pi and consoles when the TV isn't in use.

I tried to find some articles about cutting power usage but it's the internet and I don't know who to believe. Most of the results were commercial sites that sell power saving devices, so I don't really know that I can trust them.

Here's a few bits, hopefully useful:

* 1 kwh is about 25.5 cents going by the average tariff in NSW. (It's ok to approximate).

* That means a full power 2400w heater you use in the evenings from 7pm to 2am, costs around $4.35 for those 7 hours. After 3 months of doing this most evenings it might be a $300+ item on the bill.

* Modern TVs and appliances often boast "1 watt standby". You won't notice any dent on your bill from these. Sure, on a global scale you're doing your bit, but it makes bugger all difference on your bill if you leave these on. Except of course if you have pre-2006 appliances, sound systems etc, that can sometimes drain 20 - 40 watts on standby which is bad.

* you could invest in a coin-op box for your electric heater. Ebay has them, little metal boxes with timers, mainly used for coin-op PCs in cafes. They can accept different coins and multi values. They remove the stress when you see your house-mate using the heater! 60 cents buys one hour of heater or whatever you set it to.

* hot water is cheaper if you have off-peak power (properly done on a dedicated off-peak circuit). If you're renting you might not even know whether you have off-peak hot water. The size of your hot water cylinder needs to be big enough to qualify for off peak.

* Lowering thermostat by 10 deg would definitely make a difference on your bill.

* Energy efficient lights bulbs means your total lighting cost for 3 months really is a small dot on your bill. The big stuff is hot water, and your big appliances.

A lot of useful information there, thanks.

The best way to lower your bills is to demand (or allow) the utilities to build base-load power plants, preferably nukes. Since the most rational solution is off the table you are stuck with micromanaging demand instead of concentrating on more productive career or school goals.

I don't know where you live but here in California the local utility has a complex set of daily, weekly, weekend and monthly rates and tiers. The key to lowering your utility bill is to push heavy loads out of the highest rate periods, typically daily like 11am to 2pm, etc. It is all explained (very poorly) on their website. Also, you are given some "base" load for electricity and gas (defined by region) and if you exceed that your rate jumps dramatically. So if you can avoid hitting these limits on a monthly basis you can keep your costs down. Also, nat gas is about 1/3 of the cost of electric so electric heat is very expensive. If you live in an electrically heated apartment make sure that PG&E is giving you the discount for electric heat or you will pay a ton.

I'm living in Newcastle, Australia

I don't have the data to look up, but I believe heating and cooling is the largest factor in energy consumption. This includes water heating as well as room climate control, so be sure to set those. The next largest would be appliances - dryer, washer, refrigerator, stove, oven in no particular order. Lights are a smaller part overall, but as dmfdmf said, power companies have different rates at different times of the day depending on the demand. They may or may not pass those rates down to end consumers - the hack is to use more during off peak/load hours and use less when it is expensive.

disclaimer: I work at a company that does this analysis for utilities to lower consumer consumption overall - we happen to have an Australian client as well.

Your biggest costs are in heating and cooling, followed by appliances.

Some electric companies offer programs to cycle your air conditioning during peak hours. They'll cut the compressor but leave the fan running, and then turn it back on.

Example program: http://www.jacksonemc.com/home-save-energy-money/energy-savi...

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