ELECTRICITY SAVINGS THAT WORK FOR US

INTRODUCTION – NZ’S ELECTRICITY “REFORMS”
Maxwell Robert Bradford (born 1942, pictured right) is a former New Zealand politician and Cabinet Minister. He was an MP for the National Party from 1990 to 2002, and is known for introducing reforms to the electricity industry in 1998. What many of us don’t know, or forget, is that the New Zealand First Party supported those “reforms”. These are the same reforms that now provide you with limited competition, reduced supply per capita and increased power prices on an annual basis.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10526747

The Bradford legacy is this: since 2002 average residential electricity prices have risen by 4.7% a year in real terms. That means 4.7% over and above the general rate of inflation! It has created a new generation of people who can’t keep up with rising power prices, as every-day wages fail even to keep up with inflation. It has created a new kind of poverty; Power Paupers.
http://www.consumer.org.nz/reports/electricity-prices

It has, on the other side of the scale, created a whole new swathe of high-paid executives. We pay their wages. To give you a specific example of these powerful people whom Bradford’s “reforms” have created, have a look at the case of Michael Stiassny. Who? Well, www.stiassny.org reports him as “The face behind New Zealand's skyrocketing power bills.” It tells us that “power rates have increased an astronomical 80% [since] Michael Stiassny took over as Chairman of Vector Energy” in 2002. During that time, “Stiassny's own compensation doubled.” Hang on - who the hell is Michael Stiassny?!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Listener_Power_List
Scarily, he’s the Chairman of Vector Energy (pictured right) and has leaped from nowhere to become the 7th most powerful person in NZ, 2009. Such are the rewards from managing an electricity company. So desperate is he to protect his low profile and his interests, he uses that power and money to gag our principal documentary maker:
http://www.kiwisfirst.co.nz/index.asp?PageID=2145845376#stiassny-sicks-lawyers-on-tvnz-

More recently, we’ve had eleven years of a Labour government, and how many new power stations were built? All those years of boom-time, and the most Labour did with that tax revenue, it would seem, was to build a layer of middle-management bureaucracy. Hardly a lasting legacy, don’t you think?

So, how’s those electricity “reforms” working out for you, New Zealand? If our mainstream political parties will not help you, how can you help yourself?


SAVE YOURSELF – SAVE ELECTRICITY WITH THESE 14 STEPS
These steps work. My family has always had low monthly power bills around $210-$250, largely to many of these points, below. That's not bad for family of five. However, the ideas coming out in the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes of 2011 took our monthly power bills down even further to $177-$194. And that’s in a country of rising power prices. I’m not saying these tips, below, are a magic wand. I’m not saying each one of these cost-cuts will pay off your mortgage. BUT:

* Use them ALL and they WILL save you money:
* I’m sure there are other solutions, but these are the tips which work for us NOW
* This is our own personal experience – so it may not work for you
* These work for us – so there’s no harm in you giving them a go

1. Implement “Ripple” Power
Make sure, if you can, that you have “Ripple” Power installed. This is the facility that gives you cheap power after 9pm and until 7am the next morning. We had it when we moved in to this house, and not every house has it. Make sure YOU do.

2. Do Everything After 9pm, on Cheap Power
This, of course, depends on having Ripple Power. However, once you have Ripple Power, it opens up a whole avenue of cost-cutting. Do everything you can after 9pm on this cheap power; water heating, washing machine, dishwasher, mobile phone charging, re-chargeable batteries, even the car battery when it’s dead! Heck, we steam-clean the floor after 9pm!

3. Effective Water Heating – Turn it Down!
Crucially, we only do our water heating after 9pm as well. I know this is doubling up (a bit) on the above, but it’s worth making this point specific. We have a whacking great water-tank salvaged from Ashburton Army Base. As we only heat after 9pm, the tank lasts us all day, so it proves very cost-effective water heating. We kept tweaking the temperature down, until we heat only what we need to heat. Experiment with yours – turn it down until you have the lowest level that you need for your family.

4. Use your Microwave.
Anything with an element costs big electricity money. A microwave, alternatively, vibrates molecules to heat things. This means that heating a cup of water in the kettle costs TEN TIMES as much as heating a cup in the microwave. So, think what you can do in the microwave, instead of on the range or in the kettle; baked beans, tinned spaghetti, peas, soup, carrots, other vegetables, hot water for instant coffee, hot milk for hot chocolate, and much more. Be pragmatic about cooking with your microwave. Cooked chicken and a cup-of-tea from the microwave are awful. However, there are many recipes that WORK using your low-cost microwave!

5. Use your Slow Cooker (or “Crockpot”)
In the same way, a crockpot is a particularly efficient way to cook. It keeps the heat in, recycles that heat, and so cooks with very low power. It uses a lot less than those electricity-guzzling ranges and ovens. Also, there’s a lifestyle effect from using your crockpot: for families where both caregivers work, a crockpot can deliver a family meal in one pot, ready for when you come through the door. And, the crockpot DOES cook chicken well (but not cups-of-tea). Look at the crockpot cook-books by Simon and Alison Holst – they’re the masters - but there are many free recipes on the internet.

6. Use your (Gas) Barbeque
In the same vein, this was one that Orion suggested (trying to alleviate pressure on their fragile Christchurch power network). And it works. Using your barbeque just once or twice a week to cook your family meal will have a significant effect on your monthly electricity bill. Yes, I know you’re still using gas (LPG), but we’ve found it’s still a lot cheaper than using the ranges and ovens.

7. Avoid your Range and Ovens
So, the summary of 4-6 is DON’T use your oven and ranges wherever possible. Use your microwave, crockpot and barbeque instead.

8. Washing Machine on Cold
A washing machine on a Cold Wash uses 80% less power. It worked for us, and gets our clothes clean. Try it! To be fair, we did experiment with powders until we found one we liked. We settled on “Fab” Citrus Blossom by Colgate-Palmolive. Also, “Surf” Aromatherapy by Unilever was effective.

9. Fill Your Washing Machine – and get a Bigger One!
Before the Christchurch earthquakes, we’d put on the washing machine (albeit after 9pm!) regardless of how full it was. We’d just put it on a Low-, Med- or High-Water wash. However, Orion said "Use only when full." Indeed, we found that it’s cheaper over the month to miss a wash, and put a full one on the next night. So what, if there’s a half-full laundry basket for a day? It’s led us to the conclusion, that the next time we buy a washing machine; it’ll be an even bigger one. That way, we may even only have to laundry every couple of days.

10. Fill Your Dishwasher
As above, we now do the same with the dishwasher as we do with the washing machine; only put it on when it’s full. Whilst there is some debate, we’ve found a dishwasher to be more cost-effective on power than sink washing. A lot of this has to do with putting the dishwasher on only when full, and after 9pm. Critics of sink-washing say that much hot water (and therefore energy) is wasted by eking out hot water over the duration of washing and rinsing dishes. A dishwasher works for us.

11. Use your Heat Pump Effectively for Heating
We have two heat pumps; one upstairs, and one downstairs. A neighbour reminded us that a heat pump works on the principle of a freezer: once you get it to the ideal temperature, it uses very little. She then told us to run it 24/7, and we wouldn’t notice the money difference!! And she was right! We started up our heat pumps (after 9pm, of course!) when winter set in. It uses a bit of power as it starts, getting up to an ambient temperature (which is why you start it after 9pm). However, once we got to “cosy,” we hardly notice the difference in our heat bills. We used it sensibly, at temperatures between 18-20 degrees, and we subsidised that with our log burner (with free pine cones from the forest!!). We also found that there was a heckuva difference in the heat pumps’ performance when we had them serviced and cleaned. We didn’t notice much money difference from the service, but we did notice more heat for the same temperature. We recommend you do the same.

12. Use Free Wood for your Log Burner
Become a wood hound. There are always piles of wood on the road – especially around the industrial estates. As you drive around, look out for the “free wood” signs or old pallets folk throw out. It all burns. Also, we live near the forest: pine cones give off a lovely toasty heat. They’re free, lying there on the ground ready for you to pick up. The more you do this, the less electricity heating you’ll use.

13. Efficient Light Bulb Use
Couple of things here. It’s not just about switching bulbs to low-energy ones. That’s a given. It’s also about changing your habits. The kids are useful here! Whilst we can’t have them digging coal or cleaning chimneys any more, they’re easier to train than we are, in terms of switching off lights! Get started! Switch off lights behind you as you move around the house. Don’t light up rooms you’re not in. How many times do we see houses lit up like Auckland Sky Tower? In isolation, this method saves just $30-$50 a year according to the energywise.co.nz site. But used in conjunction with everything else, you can save real money.

14. Change your Power Provider – Shop Around
I was already on my way out of Contact Energy, so Mercury knocked on my door at exactly the right time. Call me old-fashioned, but I have a real problem when executives award themselves higher-than-inflation pay rises (insultingly higher than their employees) and then charge their customers (again) higher-than-inflation price rises. After what we’d been through with the earthquakes, I found Contact’s price rises insulting. So I changed from Contact to Mercury:

Company - - - - - Night Rate - Day Rate
Contact Energy: - 10.113kWh - 24.257kWh
Mercury - - - - - - 9.74kWh - - 23.49kWh


WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE – WHAT MORE CAN WE DO?
Remember, this is all about reducing the cost of something that fleeces us on a monthly basis. Because the electricity market is not yet truly opened up, being an electricity provider is having a licence to print money. This article is all about reducing dependence on someone who is trying to screw us regularly. And here’s what else we can do about that in the future:

1. Capital Expenditure – Solar Water Heating
“The time to buy Solar Water was always 5 years ago.” This is a phrase the solar pundits use, and they’re right. Because the solar hot-water solution has such a high capital cost and long-payback rate, it’s an electricity-cutting solution that draws a sharp intake of breath. However, I know the owner of a motel in Christchurch who installed solar water heating for all their units, and he borrowed to do it. His cash-flow actually improved, to the extent he proved to me it was more cash-effective to borrow for solar water heating, than to rely on legacy electricity water heating. The savings outweighed the interest payments! The reality is, for us normal house owners, the best time to install solar water heating is when we build a house.

Watch out for those solutions that use electricity as well as solar. The system in our neighbour’s house uses electricity to push the solar heated water from the panels to the water tank. This means, in the event of a power cut, you still don’t have hot water! In that same power cut, there’s the danger of the heated water blowing the seals on the panels! Shop around for the right solution for you.

2. Capital Expenditure – Log Burner
The only bummer now is that, with Christchurch’s “Clean Heat” programme, it’s difficult to get consent for standard log burners in the city boundaries. And that's a shame, because traditional log burners can burn your free wood, and heat your house for virtually free. Watch out for those pellet fires – they need electricity!!! Yes, honest. My other problem with pellet fires, until recently, was that there was only one provider of pellet fires in Christchurch. Call me old fashioned, but that’s the monopolistic fleecing arrangement we’re already in.

3. Burn up Electricity Next Power Crisis
Yes, radical and contradictory, I know. However, nothing lights a rocket under the arse of a government quicker than nationwide power cuts. It brought down the UK Heath government in 1974, and even Thatcher worried about it during the 1980s UK miners’ strike. In the early 2000s, Pete Hodgson was the NZ Energy Minister managing a drought situation. The resulting energy crisis was from the South Island dams running out of hydro water. The best Pete Hodgson could do (in this second drought year!), was to muster a meeting with the power companies and ask “Why are we here again?” I’ll tell you why Pete; because in 11 years of a Labour government, you didn’t build any more bloody power stations!!

So, the country bought into the government propaganda and conserved power. The whole nation massed behind electricity-cutting campaigns to avoid power cuts. And the media endorsed it by joining in and encouraging us. Remember the country charts on TV1's news that showed Christchurch saving more electricity than Auckland in this week or that week? What we should have been doing is RAMPING up our usage to trigger nationwide power cuts. I guarantee you, there would have been changes. Sadly, not that time. Next time, perhaps.