Save! Cut down your electricity bill

Diwali has sped past and it's now, time to put away those lanterns and psychedelic lights. It's a good time to evaluate your electricity consumption closely. There's two reasons why you need to do this. One, conserve energy (this one benefits the environment). Two, cut down your monthly electricity bill. We show you how to accomplish this without affecting your lifestyle.

Keep your PC on screensaver mode, it saves electricity. Start your AC at a lower temperature, it will cool your room faster and consume less power. You may have heard these and countless other electricity saving tips. But do these really work?

Keep your light on even when not required. This results in using less electricity than switching it on and off.

Leaving a tubelight or a bulb on in fact uses more energy than turning it on and off when needed. As a general rule, turn off the lights whenever you don't require it or leave a room. This helps in two ways:

• It saves electricity.
• It saves the lamp from heavy duty wear and tear and increases its lifespan.

Frozen!

Set your air-conditioner to its lowest setting when you start it so as to cool your room faster.

The truth is that this technique will not cool your room any faster. Instead itl will only use more electricity.

A handy tip: Do not place or keep any heat-producing appliances, such as television or lamps, near your air conditioner. The heat that these appliances produce makes the airconditioner to run for long time, as it is fooled into thinking that room temperature is high.

Screensaver or electricity saver?

Screensavers help save current. In reality, screensavers do not save any electricity. All it does is to actually turn off the screen or in the case of laptops, turn off the backlight.

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Keep your PC on

Not using your computer for the time being? Leave it On. Do not ever do that. Many people say that thinking that the constant switching on and off of a computer will lead to its graveyard sooner.

However like all other myths, it is just that! In fact turning it off when not in use will help in saving electricity and cut down your bill. Today's computers are built to tolerate several on-off cycles in a day. At the most, your computer should be turned off when the work is done.

Off is off

When I turn off an appliance, it's off.

That's a wrong notion. Many appliances have a device that continues to consume power even when they are switched off.This type of power or energy consumption is called as standby power.

In fact most appliances cannot be switched off completely unless they are unplugged.

A surge in power

There is a sudden surge in the current consumed by any electrical appliances when you switch it on or when current resumes after a power cut.

Yes, there is a surge. However, it is in negligible terms and can't be measured. This is because it happens just for a fraction of a second. Plus the surge in electricity is very minute.

In other words it is as good as no surge at all.

(With inputs from Anand R Nair, Electrical Engineer, Cognizant Solutions, Bhavesh Shetty, Computer Engineer, Katalyst Business Solutions)