Overall, water-heater technology hasn't changed much in recent years. There are, however, newer, instantaneous heating models (with no tank) that can save you annually in energy costs, although they cost more initially. Solar hot-water heaters are gaining popularity as an alternative for or supplement to conventional water-heating units.

Set your water heater to 120 degrees. It can save up to 10 percent in water-heating costs compared to a 140 degree setting.

Wrap an insulation blanket around your hot water pipes and storage tank.

Replace a showerhead that is more than 10 years old with a low-flow model. It can save up to half the hot water used for showering.

You can reduce lighting costs by 67 percent by using compact fluorescents instead of incandescent bulbs. They cost less than R10 each but can shed as much light as a 100-watt incandescent while using only about 25 watts and therefore take less energy to do more. Compact fluorescents also last 6 to 10 times longer than standard bulbs.
You can save even more by installing electronic photocell on-and-off switches and electric timers to turn lights off automatically when you don't need them. However, compact fluorescent bulbs do contain mercury and should be carefully disposed.

Products such as home-security systems, cell phones, PDAs, small wall-mounted vacuum cleaners, toys, and even those clocks built into so many appliances all consume energy.

AC power supplies (power cords with a bricklike appendage that convert AC power back to DC) used on all manner of devices consume a surprising amount of energy-more than 58 billion kilowatt-hours annually, much of that while the products they power are not even in use. That's equal to the annual output of 10 large power plants. It also translates into 40 million tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year, according to Ecos Consulting, an environmental consulting firm.
 
Increasingly, many products consume energy even when they're off. The standby power on many types of consumer electronics accounts for as much as 5 percent of total household energy consumption, or about 450 kilowatt hours per year.

The little things add up. Few of us stop to think about the environmental impact when we turn on a light or launder a load of clothes. But with millions of other people doing the same thing, such simple actions have a surprisingly large cumulative impact.

Fossil fuels contribute to global warming. Much of the energy we use in our homes is created by burning carbon-based fuels, including oil, natural gas, coal, and biomass (derived from timber, agriculture, and food processing waste). That produces carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases, whether spewing from exhaust pipes or power plants, trap heat near the Earth, resulting in the climate changes collectively referred to as global warming. Depending on where you live, you may have limited control over the type of energy you use in your home. You could however have more control than you realize over how much of it you use.

Fossil fuels are also a finite, nonrenewable resource. Experts predict that we have 20 to 100 years before worldwide demand for petroleum will exhaust available supplies.

Brownouts (when electrical power is reduced) and blackouts (when electrical power fails) are becoming more frequent. That makes energy conservation increasingly important, especially during peak periods of demand. Electric power outages cost the nation R8 billion annually. A number of factors, including an aging infrastructure, and in many provinces, utility deregulation, have combined to make the national electric grid more vulnerable to breakdown. Individuals can make it better or worse by how much air conditioning/heaters and other appliances they use during periods of peak demand, such as heat waves.

Generating electricity produces more air pollution than any other industry. Some power-plant fuels burn more cleanly than others, resulting in lower emissions. Natural gas burns the cleanest, coal pollutes the most, and oil is somewhere in between. Coal-fired plants produce chemicals, such as sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter (or fine particles) that cause smog and acid rain. This fine particulate matter mixes together with other chemicals and can exacerbate asthma and other respiratory diseases. Mercury is also released by coal-fired plants and goes into the air before settling into the soil and water.

Air pollution is also created at an earlier stage in the energy-production process, when fossil fuels are extracted from the earth and processed, such as at oil refineries.

Power plants produce other waste that must be disposed. Nuclear power plants generate extremely toxic waste that remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

Conventional fossil-fuel powered plants (oil-, coal-, or natural-gas-burning plants) generate waste ash that contains toxic chemicals and must be disposed of in specially designed landfills.

While wind and solar power generate little waste, the photovoltaic cells and batteries that may be part of a solar array can contain some toxic substances such as cadmium, which can be a problem if it ends up in a landfill.

Waterways and wildlife are also affected by power generation. Many power plants work by converting water into steam to run turbines. The removal of water from local streams, rivers, and lakes can have a harmful effect on fish and other aquatic life as can the discharge of used water that may be too hot or too cold.

With power supply problems around the country set to get worse when winter settles in, we have received some handy tips on saving electricity around the house from Eskom.

Here are some handy household tips:

• When boiling water, boil only as much as you need and don't fill the kettle with unnecessary water
• Replace light bulbs with energy saving bulbs
• Compare cooking times in a microwave with the stove, oven and steam cooker and choose the most economical source
• Switch off the dishwasher before it gets to the drying cycle and dry the dishes by hand
• Don't open and close the fridge unnecessarily
• Defrost food in the in the fridge and not the microwave oven
• Switch off the TV and radio if no one is watching or listening
• Switch off lights when no one is in the room
• Turn the geyser thermostat down to a lower temperature
• Shower rather than bath
• Shorten the time on the swimming pool pump
• Plan a braai or candlelight dinner

Part of this content was compiled by Eskom

For more information on how to save electricity visit http://www.eskom.co.za/live/content.php?Item_ID=274