As electricity bills soar, here's how to save power and money 

As energy costs escalate further, Kya deLongchamps does some detective work on how we can finesse our consumption  

EAB means the Estimated Annual Bill, and shopping for power. Use it to compare and contrast tariffs between electricity suppliers. Picture: iStock

As energy prices soar yet again, and the demands of both the domestic and industrial sectors lead to system alerts on our available electricity supply, it can all leave you feeling just a bit powerless — pun very much intended.

I’m as confused and frustrated as anyone, at the continued Government protection of power-gnashing data centres which take more electricity to maintain than all of our rural housing (14% in 2021 according to the Central Statistics Office).

Meanwhile, consumers are being quite heavily condescended to in Government-funded campaign-speak, asking us to accept instruction texts like “turn on the dishwasher now it’s windy”, and to wrangle a loan for an SEAI grant to put manners on that vintage ice-box. 

I’m fairly sure we all know how to put a lid on the potatoes.

Let’s hope the commercial giants seduced by our tax rates, get the serious, windfall taxes and dedicated tariffs for peak time enjoyment of the struggling national grid usage they can afford.

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB

What if, given the leaps and bounds of unit costs, we all had heat pumps to run, doubling our kWh needs at home?

Use plug through devices to control your electronics via an app on your phone. No hub needed. Look up the TP Tapo range of plugs and Philips Hue, compatible with Amazon, Alexa and Google Home. 

Despite my love of technology, currently, I cannot find a serious response. Right now it might be — thank God, we don’t.

Looking beyond the crisis in Ukraine, the market forces tickled by data centres (which run on small, tight staffing) is driving up the cost of our power at home. We are through the looking glass, friends.

Writing around environmental issues, I’m clinging, white-knuckled to positivity. It all comes back home. it’s those concentric circles — doing our best in those square metres served by utilities-in and waste-out.

I continue to hope that the ripples of sustainable behaviour home to home will bloom out, bisect, and do some actual good on a national level, while the politicians attempt to put some logic on our climate responsibilities, planning legislation, and immature infrastructure.

So, chin up — let’s get back to work.

PHANTOM LOAD

The phantom load is not the latest blockbuster about a demon making off with a silage haul. 

It’s the ghoulish drain taking place when you leave appliances blithely on stand-by.

For some things, the cost is minimal — the microwave will generally just demand a scratch of power for the clock. 

However, digital set-top boxes, wireless routers and entertainment elements like surround speakers and mixers can be surprisingly greedy. Industry standards have changed, and most appliances will be limited in what they can devour when they are inactive.

Chances are your older electrical goods are the culprits. Most up-to-the-minute electronics also hold their settings, and don’t have to be plugged in or left on stand-by. 

If the unit has an eco-setting, do you really know what’s that actually pulling down in power terms?

If you choose to have a Smart Meter installed (and the rollout is rolling all over the country now), it’s important to understand what its smarts offer to you as a customer, what new information it can uncover, and to use that information. Despite the evolution of new time-of-use tariffs, with two-three price bands, there are customers clinging to their traditional day/night meters, and smart meter owners who are staying firmly on 24-hour (non-smart) meter plans.

Smart meters do not boast the best kWh tariffs savings and charges overall. My standing charge for enjoying a low kWh ToU overnight tariff for the EV, is a mighty €483 Rural/Smart with “Night-Boost” with Electric Ireland. The day rate is 30.6c/kWh, with a night rate just over 15.10c/kWh. 

In contrast, an EV plan with good old NightSaver (Day/Night meter) with Energia comes in at 27.43c/kWh day and just 7.9c/kWh by night (full 11pm to 8am night rate) including VAT.

Life with a smart or NightSaver or smart meter price plan relies on a lively level of engagement — finessing of your consumption over a 24-hour period. You could shave hundreds of euro off the grid units by moving some energy use to off-peak hours when you are rising or still up and about.

This could mean a free-day smart power deal, and charging the EV on Sunday, or running the dishwasher while you are getting ready in the morning on your NightSaver rates. 

Beyond the graphs and other online insights with a smart meter, it’s logical to break this detective work down to the watt and kWh appetite of individual appliances with an extra bit of sleuthing — itemising the bill. 

There are no fixed-price deals. Percentage discounts retain the percentage only.

There are tools to find out what’s costing what to run in the house, and what’s nibbling off the worst of the split kWhs in the phantom/stand-by load. This includes appliance-itemisation, available with your smart meter. Basically, once set up with your supplier, appliance-itemisation registers changes in the draw of current when specific things are turned on. It’s something to do with mains harmonics and time-domain behaviour (whoosh — straight over my head).

Electric Ireland explains its appliance-itemisation as “each appliance uses electricity in a unique manner, think of it like an appliance fingerprint. Using our algorithms, we detect and extract these fingerprints from your electricity usage data.”

They follow up with a similar-home-comparison project, where you can use your more specific tracked usage across categories such as lighting, water heating, and refrigeration.

Want renewed energy to shriek through the bathroom door as your teen meticulously shaves their bits n’ bobs in a 20-minute showering extravaganza? Seeing the Hollywood 90210 damage in real-time can be a serious motivator. Youngsters believe we are financially infallible.

Try including them in solving the worst excesses of the power drain with a little in-hand data they cannot just blow off as middle-life neurosis. 

Ask for a five-minute commitment. Stoically take three. Making a huge deal to younger children by sharing the potential of winter blackouts, and low wind speeds paralysing wind turbines? Well, you’re simply going to upset their gilded little world.

Alternatively, you can monitor the draw of any electrical item with a plug, by slapping on a 13 amp-rated household appliances power meter, or house-wide energy monitor.

The first is a direct, plug-in adapter which will record energy consumption and even reckon a carbon footprint. Some models of meter will let you key in your kWh rate in cent amounts, showing the real price to use the item. This is useless for the shower or the sealed outlet of the electric cooker mind you.

We know just how awful a standard (non-heat-pump clothes dryer) can be. Still, vampire devices can be unexpected gluttons. It could be a PC, that’s plugged in and not shutting down fully, or a charger sucked onto your phone or camera battery, even when the device’s battery is clearly full. Monitoring appliances can show up some really odd electronic truths, including the price of having the television brightness blinding as the pilot lights of the USS Starship Enterprise. Energenie, €22, screwfix.ie.

To stop the vampire bleed, turn electronics off completely or unplug where needed. Smart sockets (plugs), again something you can manage with your tablet or smartphone, can power off one thing, or switch off a wide range of electronics, check status, create schedules and set timers using one finger tap or by voice-activation before you go to bed, leave the house or go on holiday.

Smart sockets don’t require a wi-fi hub and the best offer remote access via an app too. Look up the TP Tapo range of plugs and Philips Hue, compatible with Amazon, Alexa and Google Home. Twin packs from €18.99 for two, suppliers include very.ie. Obviously, buying in anything to save money — weigh up the investment sensibly, taking into account the real, long-term savings over more than one year.