Energy Conservation Tips and Techniques
Here at Winter Lake Research Center, we are moving toward all renewable energy sources. Although we have made good progress, we still have a ways to go. In researching energy needs, we discovered that we were using far more energy than we needed to use. Generating energy from alternative and renewable sources can be expensive and complicated. It seemed the first step was to conserve energy as much as possible.
Conserving energy does not necessarily lower living standards. It is, however, necessary to be energy conscious at all times.
Conserving energy takes a little getting used to but after the habit is formed, it becomes a natural part of life. We took about two weeks to fully get used to conserving energy at all possible times.
The following is a list of some of the more simple things you can do to conserve energy. By doing these conservation things, we cut our electrical usage in half. Not all people can do all the things on this list. The more you can do, the more you will save on energy usage.
Change light bulbs to more efficient ones.
Sell the clothes dryer and get a clothes drying rack. If you don't like the stiff feel of line dried clothes, keep the dryer. Put the clothes in the dryer on fluff setting after line drying. Fluff the clothes for five minutes and you will save a lot of energy.
Turn off lights when not in use.
If you have an electric hot water heater, turn off the electricity to it when you don't need hot water, such as at night.
Set the water heater temperature to the lowest setting you can handle for a shower.
When heating in the winter, turn the thermostat down as far as you can be comfortable in a sweater or sweatshirt. This is hard for some people to get used to, but wearing heavy clothes indoors in the winter is still a common practice around the world today.
Put all phantom loads on switched power strips. Turn off the power strips when the items are not in use. The next paragraph defines phantom loads.
Phantom loads are electricity using appliances that continue to use electricity even when switched off. Anything that runs off a "wall wart" transformer uses power whenever the transformer is plugged into the wall. Some can use substantial amounts of power even when the appliance is turned off. Feel the wall wart. It will usually feel warm to the touch. That heat is wasted electricity. Another example is a tv or dvd player that turns on with a remote control. While the tv is off, it is using power just to wait for the on signal. It also uses power to store the various settings of the tv, such as the clock, etc. None of these things amount to a huge power drain, but taken together, they can be a sgnificant portion of your overall power usage.
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