Don’t opt for solar energy before you’ve optimised your home. Part 1.
By Bevan Jones, Technical Director at Soltra Energy
Around one third of the average household’s
monthly electricity bill is linked to the hot water geyser. Why does an
electric geyser use so much energy?
The domestic geyser holds its water at a
set temperature for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Most likely the setting is
unnecessarily high. The default setting for most geysers sold in South Africa is
around 65°C.
People don’t have 65°C showers but your hot
water is maintained at this steaming temperature awaiting your pleasure. First
thing you do is add cold water to get the temperature ‘just right’.
Not only is this inefficient, but most
safety-conscious people will say it’s not safe to have tap water that hot when
children or aged people are in the house.
Your geyser also uses too much energy
because it is switched on when you don’t need it – when you are at work or
sleeping. Moreover, geysers are inherently inefficient and use more energy than
they theoretically should. This is often because the thermostat allows the
water temperature to fluctuate between 55°C - 65°C, using unnecessary amounts
of power in the process.
The first step towards optimising your home
is to transform your ‘dumb’ hot water system into a much smarter version of
itself with a CarbonTRACK system.
CarbonTRACK monitors your energy
consumption in real-time, giving you a better understanding of your electricity
usage patterns and how to enhance them. CarbonTRACK will regulate the heating
cycle and put you in control.
For example, with CarbonTRACK you can remotely
switch your hot water system on and off, set timers for its operation and
change the default temperature (even a 10-degree difference will help you save
without impacting your comfort) from anywhere in the world.
CarbonTRACK’s user dashboard allows you to track
and benchmark your energy consumption and make informed decisions related to
improving areas of inefficiency, helping you cut back on wasted electricity.
Once you’re on the road to meaningful energy
savings with a CarbonTRACK, cost reducing programme, the next step to take
before considering a state-of-the-art solar energy system is to replace your
old, perhaps rusty geyser with a modern heat pump. Where a geyser uses three
units of electrical energy to produce three units of heat energy, a heat pump
converts just one unit of electrical energy into four units of heat energy. I’ll
explain how this works in my next blog.
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