4 ms·

Turning the TV off whilst doing the house work is basically a rounding error. You'd have to drink a lot of tea (or rather stop drinking) before kettle usage st

Turning the TV off whilst doing the house work is basically a rounding error. You'd have to drink a lot of tea (or rather stop drinking) before kettle usage starts accounting for anywhere near 2/3rds of your electrical usage. Air conditioning/electrical heating is possible. But if its 2/3rds of your energy usage, it doesn't sound that optional. The biggest users of electricity are ones you can't easily cut out. Electric car, hot water, heating/cooling, cooking, washing machine, dryer, fridge. They're the major energy users in the home, and you can't easily reduce them by the 2/3rds required. Unless you took your shack to passivehaus standards, and that's only for heating cooling.

chess_buster 7y ago
So buy more efficient devices then.
- benj111 7y ago
  We are talking about reducing 2/3rd of your electricity consumption. The only 2 classes of devices that could save that much is incandescent -> led light and resistive heating -> heat pump. And those efficiencies aren't enough to offset all the other devices where efficiency improvements are in the single digit percent. So you're still having to combine that with something else, which seems to be moving away from the relatively painless the great(?) grandparent described it as.
taneq 7y ago
Air conditioning and heating can easily be 2/3rds or more of your usage and is trivial to reduce. Instead of running aircon in the summer you can probably use a fan most days and save 5-10kWh per day. In winter, dress warmly and rug up in a blanket instead of keeping your room at 22°C. This on its own would make up the bulk of the savings. Electric hot water is another huge power drain, switch to solar hot water and 3/4 of the year your hot water could be free (depending on climate, of course). Otherwise keep showers short, set the water heater thermostat to 50°C instead of 70°C and you could save a lot. Depends on your TV, my old one pulled 400W or so. Not huge compared with heating/cooling but still significant if you leave it on all the time. Tumble dryers use tons of power. Hang your laundry up instead and you could save yourself 20-30kWh/week. If you're driving an electric car you're loaded enough that the cost of charging it will not be an issue anyway (especially given that every dollar you spend in electricity is saving you several dollars' worth of petrol). So basically all of these things can be reduced a lot for very little extra effort or inconvenience. I don't think 2/3rds would be out of the question without making major sacrifices.
- benj111 7y ago
  "Air conditioning and heating can easily be 2/3rds or more of your usage and is trivial to reduce" its not trivial to reduce it to zero which is what we are talking about, absent other changes. "Tumble dryers use tons of power. Hang your laundry up instead and you could save yourself 20-30kWh/week" How much washing do you do each week?! You're right though, in the best best case this could be reduced to zero, assuming no rain, or winter. "solar hot water" this is kind of cheating. If solar hot water were the cheapest or generally accepted option v solar electric I'd accept, but that isnt the case as far as I aware. I wouldn't accept gas heating or hot water either. I don't deny that you could construct a scenario where you can trivially save 2/3rds of your electricity usage, but we have an OP who has done the work to identify that they can save this without too much trouble, so they have some awareness of the issue, but then we have to assume they are starting from a high base and haven't done anything to lower their usage, which doesn't make much sense, and then also assume they live in an incredibly temperate climate where they don't need heating/cooling, but simultaneously assume they they like it really warm in winter and really cool in summer. That's too many leaps for me. I havent done these sums, so I'm less dedicated than the op?, but I already have an lcd tv, led lights, hang my washing out when its sunny, put a jumper on in winter, and don't possess aircon. I don't have 2/3rd fat to trim, and that's energy usage. If anything I'd expect my long term electricity usage to increase, my heating, hot water and hob are gas, and my cars petrol. I expect those to become electric in the medium term.
  - taneq 7y ago
    So your point is that if you've already taken the low hanging fruit, there aren't low hanging fruit? OK then.
    - benj111 7y ago
      No my point is you have to assume the tree is amazingly well laden in perfectly ripe fruit, the OP has taken stock, and rather than taking a fruit to eat, has gone off to do something else.

chess_buster 7y ago

So buy more efficient devices then.

benj111 7y ago
We are talking about reducing 2/3rd of your electricity consumption. The only 2 classes of devices that could save that much is incandescent -> led light and resistive heating -> heat pump. And those efficiencies aren't enough to offset all the other devices where efficiency improvements are in the single digit percent. So you're still having to combine that with something else, which seems to be moving away from the relatively painless the great(?) grandparent described it as.

taneq 7y ago

Air conditioning and heating can easily be 2/3rds or more of your usage and is trivial to reduce. Instead of running aircon in the summer you can probably use a fan most days and save 5-10kWh per day. In winter, dress warmly and rug up in a blanket instead of keeping your room at 22°C. This on its own would make up the bulk of the savings. Electric hot water is another huge power drain, switch to solar hot water and 3/4 of the year your hot water could be free (depending on climate, of course). Otherwise keep showers short, set the water heater thermostat to 50°C instead of 70°C and you could save a lot. Depends on your TV, my old one pulled 400W or so. Not huge compared with heating/cooling but still significant if you leave it on all the time. Tumble dryers use tons of power. Hang your laundry up instead and you could save yourself 20-30kWh/week. If you're driving an electric car you're loaded enough that the cost of charging it will not be an issue anyway (especially given that every dollar you spend in electricity is saving you several dollars' worth of petrol). So basically all of these things can be reduced a lot for very little extra effort or inconvenience. I don't think 2/3rds would be out of the question without making major sacrifices.

benj111 7y ago
"Air conditioning and heating can easily be 2/3rds or more of your usage and is trivial to reduce" its not trivial to reduce it to zero which is what we are talking about, absent other changes. "Tumble dryers use tons of power. Hang your laundry up instead and you could save yourself 20-30kWh/week" How much washing do you do each week?! You're right though, in the best best case this could be reduced to zero, assuming no rain, or winter. "solar hot water" this is kind of cheating. If solar hot water were the cheapest or generally accepted option v solar electric I'd accept, but that isnt the case as far as I aware. I wouldn't accept gas heating or hot water either. I don't deny that you could construct a scenario where you can trivially save 2/3rds of your electricity usage, but we have an OP who has done the work to identify that they can save this without too much trouble, so they have some awareness of the issue, but then we have to assume they are starting from a high base and haven't done anything to lower their usage, which doesn't make much sense, and then also assume they live in an incredibly temperate climate where they don't need heating/cooling, but simultaneously assume they they like it really warm in winter and really cool in summer. That's too many leaps for me. I havent done these sums, so I'm less dedicated than the op?, but I already have an lcd tv, led lights, hang my washing out when its sunny, put a jumper on in winter, and don't possess aircon. I don't have 2/3rd fat to trim, and that's energy usage. If anything I'd expect my long term electricity usage to increase, my heating, hot water and hob are gas, and my cars petrol. I expect those to become electric in the medium term.
- taneq 7y ago
  So your point is that if you've already taken the low hanging fruit, there aren't low hanging fruit? OK then.
  - benj111 7y ago
    No my point is you have to assume the tree is amazingly well laden in perfectly ripe fruit, the OP has taken stock, and rather than taking a fruit to eat, has gone off to do something else.