Archive for July 2014
Energy Efficiency – Invest in Long Term Savings
After ensuring on no wastage of unnecessary energy consumption, then the focus is on evaluating the efficiency of your energy appliances. Starting from mid of this year 2014, there will be a minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) set for 5 domestical electrical products, namely Air Conditioner, Refrigerator, Television, Domestic Fan and Lamps (Source: Energy Commission). This means that any of the 5 mentioned electrical appliances will need to pass a certain energy performance benchmark to be in the consumer market, and it is mandatory to be labelled with an energy star label like below:
The Energy Star Label. Try to find one in your hardware shops today! Source: Energy Commission
The key to energy efficiency is to know how to evaluate your pay back period for the upfront additional investment cost. This can be seen by the estimated energy consumption (kWh) per year and you can work out on the ringgit and sense of it, so please discourage judging your decision upon looking at the price, as you wouldn’t know that they might be the priciest in operation cost few years down the road. The operating cost of electrical appliances is always much more than the purchasing cost in most cases.
Reference : http://blog.japhethlim.com/
Illustration of the typical Malaysian Household energy consumption. Credit:TheStar
Energy Conservation – If you fail this, you fail all else.
Yes it is said so because energy conservation is the very fundamental of embarking the saving energy action plan. If you do not practise it and continue to embark on Energy Efficiency, the effort may be bounced effect. It suggests that the increase in efficiency with which a resource is used tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of the resource. The greenest light bulb is the one that you will switch off when it is not in used. Besides having the rule of thumb on switching off anything unnecessary as you are not using it, ask the other fundamental questions:
- Are you really using only what you need?
- What is the size of your fridge and television?
- Do you need 4 down lights fittings to lit up your task activity (e.g reading newspaper)?
- Do you need to use the Air Conditioner, or even fan when you can have natural ventilation.
Posts
