Jesusegun Alagbe
With power supply yet to reach stability in the country, it is common knowledge that many homes and companies are largely or solely dependent on diesel or petrol to generate electricity.
However, with its high cost, it is not wise to keep spending a large portion of one’s income on powering generator. These tips would help you save some money on buying fuel, according to rpc.com.au. Just by incorporating a battery bank, a 240-volt battery charger, and an inverter into the power system, you can reduce your fuel bills by as much as 50 per cent.
You could further reduce your fuel bills by using the following six tips:
Use low energy bulbs
By using low voltage light bulbs, you can have good quality lighting that is more reliable and uses considerably less power. The PL-type lights (nickname for a twin tube fluorescent lamp coined by Philips Lighting) are a mixture of fluorescent, neon, sodium and mercury vapour light technology, are up to five times more efficient than incandescent light bulbs and last six times longer. By using the most efficient lights where the lights are needed the most, you can make another significant reduction in your fuel bills.
Use low voltage home appliances
By introducing a selection of low voltage appliances to your home, you can reduce generator runtime and use less power overall. Low voltage appliances — particularly home theatre systems, electric fans, pumps, and so on — which are connected directly to the battery supply are more energy-efficient than their 240-volt equivalents.
Lower your refrigerator usage
By changing over to a low voltage compressor motor-type refrigerator, you may be able to significantly reduce your fuel bills still further. A low voltage compressor motor-type refrigerator or freezer on average uses significantly less power than its 240-volt counterpart.
Use gas cooker for heating water
A gas cooker, rather than electric cooker, could take care of your hot water needs in case you don’t want to use stove.
Go for smaller generator
Generators are often geared to being able to power everything being turned on all at once, i.e., maximum loading. By transferring a significant portion of this load either to a battery-based inverter or directly to a battery bank, there could be a considerable downscaling of the size of generator needed. Any petrol or diesel generator needs to have a minimum loading when it is running. This means that if you just want to watch TV which is connected to the generator, you would have to turn on a whole lot of other things such as light bulbs, appliances, heaters, etc. in order to provide this minimum load. Just to watch TV can cost you a small fortune in fuel. A smaller generator has a smaller minimum loading and uses less fuel per kilowatt-hour for the smaller loads.
Renewable energy is the best option
Agreed, it costs perhaps a fortune to install a solar power system, but if you have already employed one or a combination of the above methods to reduce your fuel bills, you could start using your savings to invest in long-term measures to further reduce your fuel bills and even cut off your dependence on generator. Install solar panel, wind turbine or hydro unit in your home and you will never worry about electricity again. A combination of energy sources is always the best option — when the sun doesn’t shine, you will have either the wind blowing or the rain pouring. Hydro power, unfortunately, is not applicable to many remote areas as a fast-flowing stream and/or a vertical head of water (to give pressure) are essential.
source:PUNCH.
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