Monitor Energy Use And Save On Your Bills

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Benefits of using an energy monitor

There are many benefits to using an energy monitor in your home. These include:

• Reducing your energy bills – Home energy monitors allow you to carefully monitor the amount of electricity you are using in your home, allowing you to make changes in order to reduce your energy usage and energy bills
• Kinder to the environment – Energy consumed in homes is responsible for over a quarter of all UK emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas causing climate change. Being more energy efficient will reduce carbon emissions as well as your fuel bills
• Easy to fit and easy to use – Energy monitors are easy to fit in your home and they are easy to use and to read

What are home energy monitors and how do they work?

Home energy monitors are small wireless devices that help you see how much electricity you are using at a given time.

Energy monitors normally consist of two parts. Firstly, a transmitter clips around the cable on your electricity meter. This measures the current and then transmits a signal wirelessly to a small screen/display that you can keep anywhere in your home.

The energy monitor will normally provide you with information such as how much electricity you’re using, the cost per hour plus how much carbon dioxide your home is emitting.

Remember that an energy monitor isn’t a substitute for your electricity bill. It is designed to provide a good indication of how much your electricity is costing and how much power you are using. And, they are not ‘smart meters’ – electricity meters designed to provide more accurate readings to energy companies.

In addition, energy monitors don’t save you anything directly. They are designed to be a tool for you to monitor the energy usage in your home and to change your habits so you use less electricity. As well as saving money on your bills this also helps reduce your home’s carbon emissions, helping to reduce the damaging effects of climate change.

Choosing an energy monitor

There are two main types of energy monitor:

• Whole house energy monitor – this is a small screen that you can take anywhere in your house. The monitor communicates with a transmitter unit that clips onto your electricity meter and tells you how much electricity you are using in real time
• A plug-in monitor – This more basic tool helps you to work out the power consumption of individual appliances. They are used between the plug and socket of individual devices although you can sometimes monitor several devices together using a multi socket extension lead

Whole home energy monitors are not as good at working out the power consumption of individual devices, as they constantly measure the total electricity usage in your home (meaning it is difficult to work out the usage of one specific appliance).

However, whole home energy monitors are normally recommended as they can cover devices which do not have plugs and so you get a better picture of your entire home’s energy usage. They include the electricity used by alarm systems, lighting circuits, central heating pumps, showers, cookers and immersion heaters – devices which can’t be measured by plug-in monitors.

Helping you compare your energy usage with others

Using an energy monitor can also help you compare your home’s gas and electricity usage against other people and other homes.

Using websites such as Imeasure – run by the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute – and Energy Average, you can use the information from your energy monitor to input your home’s energy usage. This helps you compare your energy usage to other people.

Tips for Getting the Most out of your Energy Monitor

There are lots of ways that you can help reduce your energy bills with a home energy monitor. To get the most out of your monitor you should:

• Personalise the tariff rate – make sure the energy monitor lets you input the specific fuel tariff you are on
• Move it regularly – Moving your energy monitor means you’re more likely to notice it and check the readings
• Establish your ‘night time’ rate – When you go to bed, almost everything in your home can be switched off (except your fridge/freezer). Once you have established the ‘base rate’ for energy usage in your home this can be used as a target to strive for
• Work out the appliances that use most energy – Use the monitor to help you work out which of the appliances in your home use the most energy
• Use all the functions – Most energy monitors have lots of additional functions including a ‘rate alarm’ (where the unit will make a sound if your energy usage reaches a certain level) or a ‘daily rate’ where you set a target rate for your consumption every day

Insider Buying Advice

Typical Costs

There are many different home energy monitors available in the market and they cot anything from £30 to over £100 depending on the functions offered. You can purchase them from many high street stores or from online retailers.

Beware of energy suppliers who provide free monitors with selected tariffs. Always ask for more information regarding these deals as these energy contracts almost always cost more than other tariffs. It is normally far cheaper to secure the lowest price electricity and then to buy your home energy monitor separately.

Calculating Your Return On Investment

The Energy Saving Trust estimates that households in the UK waste around 8 per cent of their electricity bill on standby power. That equates to about £40 a year for an average household while, in addition, £170 million a year is wasted through leaving lights on in unused rooms.

DirectGov reports that in small-scale trials of home energy monitors, customers have typically saved between five and 15 per cent in the first year of owning an energy monitor. These savings have come from people being much more aware of the energy that they are using and making efficiency savings where possible.

On a £1,000 annual bill, this could equate to a saving of between £50 and £150 which means that you should cover the cost of your home energy monitor within one year.

Julia Hailes, author of the best-selling New Green Consumer Guide told the Daily Telegraph that she reduced her annual electricity bill by at least a quarter when she installed an energy monitor. This more than paid back the cost of the monitor in less than one year.

Ongoing Running Costs and Maintenance

The beauty of a home energy monitor is that you do not have to undertake any servicing or maintenance once it is fitted. However, some units require battery back-up and so you may have to change the batteries on an annual basis.

Installing a home energy monitor is therefore a cheap and easy way of helping you to reduce your energy bills. Remember though that the monitor itself won’t directly save you any money; it’s the change to your habits as a result of monitoring your usage that will result in cost and environmental benefits.