Simple strategies that’ll halve your energy bills

Ayodele Adesina, lives in the Magodo area of La­gos and occupies a three-bedroom flat. Recently, he noticed that his monthly electricity bill had risen from N10,000 to N20,000, even without commensurate sup­ply to justify the increase.

Ayodele was so furious that he had to contact a law­yer friend to sue the manage­ment of the electricity dis­tribution company covering his neigbourhood. The legal practitioner advised him to write a protest letter to the Disco to correct the anomaly, but two months after, the problem had yet to abate.

Ayodele said he leaves home very early and re­turned around 10pm in the evening, while on weekends he attends lectures at the Pan Atlantic University for a Mas­ters Programme.

But upon careful investi­gation, he discovered that his brother who lives with him, without his knowledge was involved in the business of sachet water, popularly called ‘pure water’, was using much of the energy that was available during the day, a de­velopment that was respon­sible for his huge electricity bills.

Besides, he discovered that the younger brother was also in the habit of switching on the three air condition­ers at the same time, and the electrical bulbs that were not needed during day time.

The case of Ayodele is just one of the numerous across the country where energy wastage coupled with theft has become the order of the day. The recent disclosure by the Executive Director of Electricity Distributors As­sociation of Nigeria (EDAN), Mr. Sunday Oduntan, that Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) ,includ­ing Federal, State and Local Governments owe EDAN members about N93 billion in electricity debts is mind boggling.

Beyond the N93 billion power debt, Oduntan equally told Daily Sun, in a telephone discussion that over N100 billion is being owed EDAN by residential and industrial consumers, bringing the ac­cumulated debt profile to N193billion.

Based on the foregoing, he said the Discos have recorded additional N300 billion in revenue shortfall, and that was still growing.

Beyond the challenge of the mounting debt bill, electricity consumers have constantly complained of being slammed with huge bills, which, most times they claimed was not their actual consumption.

But, stakeholders have blamed energy inefficiency for this development, which is partly responsible for the rising debt profile of electric­ity bills of MDAs, residential and industrial users, adding that Nigerians under the new electricity tariff structure may have no other choice than to change their energy consumption pattern.

Understanding energy efficiency

Under the new power tariff regime, which took effect February 1, 2016, electricity consumers in R2 class, said to be under resi­dential, are expected to pay N24.30 per kilowatt in Abu­ja; Benin-N24.08; Enugu- N27.13; Ibadan–N23.09; Jos – N26.93; Kaduna – N27.36 and N28.05 (in single phase and three phases); Kano – N20.26 and N26.41; Ikeja – N21.30 and N21.80; Port Har­court –N24.91; Eko- N24.00 and 25.79; Yola –N23.25 and N24.75 per kilowatt.

According to that develop­ment, residential customers under R2 class within Abuja Electricity Distribution Company will no longer pay N702.00 fixed charge every month; instead, their charge will increase by N9.60kwh.

But energy auditors, insist consumers can eas­ily save between 5 and 10 percent of our energy consumption (and costs) by changing our behavior such as switching electrical equipment off at the mains rather than leaving it on standby, turning off lights when they’re not being used

Saving electrical energy will directly reflect to sav­ing money so it is very nec­essary to understood what is paid per kilowatt hour, which has already been ex­plained earlier under the new tariff regime

The major appliances in homes — refrigerators, clothes washers, dishwash­ers — account for a big chunk of monthly utility bill. And if refrigerator or washing machine is more than a decade old, one is spending a lot more on en­ergy than is needed.

Today’s major appliances don’t hog energy the way older models do because they must meet minimum energy efficiency standards as prescribed by the Inter­national Standards Organ­isation (ISO). These stan­dards have been tightened over the years, so any new appliance bought recently has to use less energy than the model being replaced. For instance, if you buy one of today’s most energy-ef­ficient refrigerators, it will use less than half the energy of a model that’s 12 years old or older.

The Nigeria scenario

An energy expert and Chief Operating Officer, Powtech Power Interna­tional Limited, Mr. Regi­nald Ifionu,said recently that if the electricity supply in the country is efficiently managed and utilised, Nige­ria can save $1 billion from efficient use of energy.

Ifionu, said that it costs about $1 million to build a megawatt of electricity. “At the country’s current gen­erating capacity of less than 4,000 megawatts, MW, and the ability of ES-25 to save energy by 25 percent, the country will be saving at least $1 billion adopting energy ef­ficient devices,” he said.

“Energy bills are steeply rising and there is an urgency of usage of various energy conservation retrofits to save energy on different electri­cal equipment available at home.

The best technique avail­able is to install ES-25 energy savers, which will reduce the energy bills up to 25 percent,” he added.

The way out

Senior Associate/Team Leader of the Energy Practice Group of Banwo Ighodalo and Associates, Mr. Ayodele Oni, explained that with in­creasing electricity tariffs, consumers now need to con­sider a more budget friendly energy consumption pattern

He advised consumers to consider more efficient usage of electricity by using com­pressed fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and light emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of the incandescent lamp. Move­ment sensing electricity sys­tems which automatically switch off when no move­ment is detected should also be considered. Furthermore, attitudes generally need to change such that the culture of wastage is dispensed with.

The way to conserve ener­gy is to buy efficient electrical appliances because they use two to 10 times less electric­ity for the same functionality, and are mostly higher qual­ity products that last longer than the less efficient ones. In short, efficient appliances save you lots of energy and money.

According to Micheal­bluejay. Com, a firm which specialises in offering advice on best way ways to conserve energy, consumers should look out for efficiency rating labels on appliances before buying.