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Renewable Energy

Earning money with energy saving

Posted by Jeroen van Agt in Energy saving Add comments

From 13000 kWh to 1400 kWh, saving € 2320 per year….

Plaatje van 500 euro biljet

After my enthousiasm about my first solar panel, I started to investigate my power consumption in my house

Soon, I learned that my electricity consumption in recent years has increased slowly, until an extremely high consumption (for Dutch standards) of 13000 kWh per year. That means an electricity bill of more than € 2600 per year! This triggered my action plan to started to be energy neutral. 

As a comparison, the electricity consumption of an average household (2.4 people) in the Netherlands in 2004 was 3346 kWh / year. A larger family uses more electricity in general, see the table below.

The yearly power consumption for different household sizes in the Netherlands:

  • 1 person household 2220 kWh
  • 2 person household 3095 kWh
  • 3 person household 3875 kWh
  • 4 person household 4345 kWh
  • 5 person household 4910 kWh
  • 6 or more persons household 5295 kWh.

Source: milieu centraal

This triggered me to investigate what caused my high power consumption…..

On the website of milieu centraal have found good overview of the major power consumers in a house. I used this as an guide to find my major power consumers.

Device Average annual power usage in kWh Average costs per year
€ 0,20 per kWh (single-tariff price of 2006).
Waterbed 200-1000 € 40,- til € 200,-
Dryer 599 € 120,-
Lights 540 € 108,-
Cooking equipment 55 – 530 € 11,- – € 106,-
Elektrical boiler (80 -100 liter) 1900 € 380,-
Refrigerator / freezer 2-doors 462 € 92,-
Large freezer 380 € 76,-
Refrigerator with small freeze compartment 286 € 57,-
Washing machine 231 € 46,-
Dishwasher 305 € 61,-
Central heating pump 270 € 54,-
Computer 146 € 29,-
TV 138 € 28,-
Video-recorder 108 € 22,-
Coffee machine 80 € 16,-
Vacuum 54 € 11,-
Audio equipment (midiset) 52 € 10,-

Using this list I made an overview of my largest power consumers and an action plan how I could save energy with the same type of comfort. This resulted in the following actions to save energy:

Device Before Now Reduction
Dryer 2 x week dryer (1.8 kWh / run) the whole year dry in the sun (outside) 50% of the year, dryer other 50% of the time 0.26 kWh / day
Lights 2 x dimmed halogen lights (160W), 5 x halogen spot lights (100W) 3 CFL lights (25W), 3 CFL reflector spots (21W), 2 led spot (2W) 0.85 kWh / day *
Refrigerator Refrigerator, freezer and a combi (3.3kWh / day) New refrigerator / freeze combi energy efficient (A+ label)  (0.6 kWh / day) 2.7 kWh / day
Computers multimedia pc (100W), gateway pc (60W), server (250W), desktop pc (180W) all continuous on multimedia pc (60W), laptop (30W), server (100W) only the server stays on 11.76 kWh / day
Airco Split unit Airco (1250W), 4 months / year continue Passive cooling by using shutters on the house (outside) 9.86 kWh / day
Total 25.43 kWh/ day

* Assumption: Average use of lights 4 hours per day.

My action plan resulted in reducing my yearly power consumption from 13000 kWh to 3718 kWh. This saves me € 1856, – per year on my electricity bill. 

The other reduction is achieved by my new solar panels, which provide 2280 kWh per year.

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