In everyday life, we don’t always pay attention to the actions we repeat several times a day: turning lights on and off, using appliances, plugging in your phone or computer charger… Yet, understanding your energy consumption can help you use less, resulting in financial savings and a valuable reduction in ecological impact.
Why be interested in your energy consumption?
French people spend on average between 1500€ and 1900€ per year on energy bills. However, an assessment of your energy consumption and simple actions can easily and quickly reduce this bill. Moreover, the production of energy — electricity, gas, etc. — is a significant source of pollution. Understanding your energy consumption allows you to control it and manage the pollution, particularly the emission of greenhouse gases that you generate upstream.
To understand your energy consumption through your bill, you need to break it down:
• consumption,
• subscription,
• taxes,
• transmission tariff.
You can also track your consumption on the meter to evaluate the times of day and year when you consumed the most.
How to consume less energy to save money?
To consume less, you must first identify the major energy consumption areas: electric heating, fridge, and various home appliances, electrical equipment left on standby… It is estimated that 10% of electrical consumption is dedicated to devices that are plugged in but not turned on! Some electricity providers offer assessments that identify these areas and help adopt the right behaviors to lower your bill and ecological impact!
You will also find companies that carry out such assessments and provide equipment to monitor consumption, like timers in particular. Finally, you can study the different offers from energy providers. Some offer flexible deals, such as Wekiwi, which allows you to subscribe to electricity online directly on their site and have pricing adapted to your consumption pattern.
Monitoring your energy consumption is also good for the planet!
Besides the significant financial gain from saving on energy consumption, these behaviors also help protect the planet by minimizing the pollution generated by your household’s energy consumption. Some simple actions can be adopted now: do not overheat your home and ensure shutters are closed at night, do not clutter radiators with objects placed on them, opt for appliances with the “A” label, do not leave plugged-in devices that are not in use, use “eco” modes on appliances like washing machines and dishwashers, and especially do not run them half empty, etc.
So many simple actions are within our reach, it just takes a bit of goodwill and common sense.
