How Solar Can Prevent Your Bill From Spiking During Summer
While summer has many great qualities, one thing most do not look forward to is the spike in our electricity bills.
It’s during this season when we tend to significantly increase the use of air conditioners. With several scorching hot days in a row, households can find they’ve kept their AC on for days at a time, and this can significantly increase your electricity bills. In fact, 69% of Australians believe that air-conditioning is a huge contributor to higher electricity bills. During this season, running your AC for just two hours can cost you about $110. With energy prices continuing to increase, 62% of Australian homeowners have decided to cut their AC usage.
Running your pool pump to accommodate for the increased use of your pool during the summer will also spike up your bills. Furthermore, with the several other appliances your home has running at one time, your electricity prices could come as a shock.
Fortunately, there are ways to cut down your bill during the summer, and for the rest of the year as well. Aside from the usual energy-saving habits, such as switching off appliances that are not in use and checking energy efficiency ratings when looking for new household items, another solution that is proven to deliver significant savings is solar energy.
How Solar Saves You Money
Solar energy provides power using solar panels, which converts solar energy into usable electricity for your home. As you may expect, there is an abundance of sunshine to power your home during the summer. Due to longer sunlight hours, your system can begin generating power from the early hours of the morning till well into the evening as the sun stays up for longer. During the day when your system is generating energy, your home will automatically pull energy from your system to power your appliances.
A 5kW solar system will generate approximately 20kWh per day, depending on a variety of factors including your location, positioning and quality of components. The average home in Australia uses about 16kWh per day. However, it’s important to note that this does not mean that by installing solar you will suddenly receive an electricity bill for $0. This is because most households consume a large portion of their electricity at night, so your system isn’t generating any energy at this time. However, you can make considerable improvements to your energy consumption during the day to significantly lower your bill.
Converting most of your energy usage to the day time is the most effective way to maximise your consumption of the free energy your system is producing. You can easily adopt the follow 4 habits to improve your solar consumption:
- Run your AC during the day, or late afternoons to cool your house down for the evening
- Switch your pool pump to run during 11am-2pm, as this is when your system is producing the most energy and will be able to cover the energy requirements of your pool pump
- Run your dishwasher in the morning, rather than at night. You can still pack your dishwasher after your evening meal, but wait until the morning to turn it on
- Use your washing machine during the day. You could put a load on before work or when you get home, which will still allow plenty of time to hang your washing out
By adopting better usage habits of your appliances and implementing the above tips, you can maintain a comfortable lifestyle without the added stress of expensive bills. If you would like a quote for a solar system for your home, please contact us today.
