Keep control of your power when working from home
Working from home can add up to an extra dollar a day for electricity – where is it coming from? Mikaela Wilkes reports.
One certainty for New Zealanders in the coming weeks will be the continued need to work from home and bigger power bills. Cold weather is only half the culprit as lockdown conditions spike domestic energy consumption.
Energy use that would have previously happened outside the home during nine to five is now on your tab: cooking lunch, making cups of tea, keeping warm, and running electronics all day.
‘‘The first week of lockdown increased home electricity usage by about 15 per cent,’’ said David Goadby, CEO of Energyclub. ‘‘There was a definite increase between March 23 and 24 as most people worked from home and the weather became cold.
‘‘In the lockdown, the energy consumption that’s been added to the average house would be 2-3 kilowatt hours a day. That could be up to a dollar a day.’’
That might not sound like much, but it’s a chunk of change for households facing reduced income and uncertainty around their financial future.
We asked EECA Energywise to break down how much Kiwis are paying to power staying at home.
The sweet little laptop setup you’ve got on at the kitchen bench costs nothing compared to the price of petrol and/or public transport to a place of work. On average, a laptop is 0.85 cents an hour to run, plus an extra 0.5c an hour for an attached monitor, or 2.45c an hour for a PC.
A 40-hour work week will set you back about a dollar in terms of basic electronics, including the price of the router and charging an iPhone with even the worst battery life.
‘‘Charging a phone like the iPhone 7 from empty every day for a year costs 71 cents, while a tablet like an iPad Air, with a much larger battery, would cost $2.66,’’ said Consumer in its most recent assessment of household appliance running costs (2017).
But EECA spokesman Marcos Pelenur still wants you to remember to turn them off at the wall when you relocate to the lounge for some me time. ‘‘Instead of worrying about how many laptops and lightbulbs you have, the easiest thing you can do to save money is to just turn off all these things at the end of the day,’’ he said.
The most expensive thing to leave on standby is a multi-function printer, as some models cost up to $10 a month, reported Consumer.
At least part of the budget you’re saving by not blowing $5 a day on barista coffee is being eaten into by the kettle. At 1.5 cents per 2-litre boil, each time you forget your drink on the bench is an additional charge. Tip: only fill the kettle with the amount of water you need for a cuppa.
One of the joys of the office in winter is the toasty heating. You might be tempted to crank up the heat pump, or electric heaters first thing on the chilly mornings, but this is where your dollars really start to mount up.
Even if you have only the 6kW heat pump on from 8am-11am, that’s $5.70 for the work week. If you have it on for a full eight hours a day, you’ll add $15.20 to your bill before the weekend. Likewise, a 2kW electric heater left on for five hours is a pricey $2.50 a day.
A pair of fluffy socks and a hoodie will do the same for free. So will shutting the doors and curtains to lock heat in.
EECA’s Pelenur says, ‘‘If you are working from home, you may not have the luxury of choosing where to site your work space, but if you can, use a small space that’s easy to heat on its own. Move your desk to a position that gets good natural light.
‘‘If you use a heat pump, avoid auto mode. Auto will try to maintain temperature by constantly changing between heating and cooling, as opposed to the heating mode.’’
If last night’s leftovers taste just the same heated in the microwave as they do in the oven, go for the former. A 2400W oven on full costs 60 cents an hour to run, so if any prolific bakers are looking at a big bottom line it’s probably because of the banana bread. One flatmate toasting their sammie on fan bake for 10 minutes is 10 cents, 10 times the cost of running a 1200W microwave for some two-minute noodles (1.5 cents).
The other thing to watch out for with all the extra meals being made is running the dishwasher more too, at 16.5 cents per load. A half-load uses the same amount of energy as a full one, so wait until it’s all stacked. ‘‘And if you rinse dishes before loading the dishwater, use cold water,’’ Pelenur says.
Reducing unnecessary use of hot water will save you money and free up more cash for heating. If you can’t bear to cut down on shower time, use the cold water wash cycle on any laundry you’re doing on micro-breaks.
‘‘Modern washing machines and detergents clean well using cold water. A hot water wash can use 10 times more electricity than a cold wash,’’ Pelenur says.
‘‘All the little things by themselves are small but when you add up all those cents per hour they can come out to be quite a bit.’’
The good news is, getting in a cheeky episode or two is close to free. A television costs 2 cents an hour to watch, so even if you have traded work for a 40-hour Netflix binge, that would cost about the same as running the dryer once.
Working from home also means you can take advantage of your provider’s off-peak hours, when electricity is cheaper. These generally fall in office hours, or late in the evening.
One flatmate toasting their sammie on fan bake for 10 minutes is 10 cents, 10 times the cost of running a 1200W microwave for some two-minute noodles.