With Electricity costing more than double what it did a few short years ago it makes good sense to save electricity where we can.

Energy Audits, Energy Monitoring Systems, Energy Efficient lighting upgrades and Solar power are all things we can help you with in the battle to keep energy costs under control.  As with all saving...the sooner you start the bigger the benifit.

Talk to us about an Energy Audit where we come to your home or workplace and go through your lighting and appliance needs to see where you are using the most power and we can advise you on options to save power based on changing usage behaviour or considering swapping to more energy efficient alternatives in lighting or appliances.

We are also able to supply & install either simple or involved Energy Monitoring System which can give you real time information on your energy usage so you can help understand where your using power and work out ways you can reduce your consumption.  Research has shown that people save money in power by having a power monitoring system in their home or business simply through the awareness it brings to their power use, that is even before any of the power saving changes that the monitoring might lead to.

Lighting:
Lighting can be an area where large savings can be made, and fairly simply.
We have had compact fluro lamps (CFL) readily available for many years now and in recent years LED technology has become both more reliable and more affordable, but we still come across houses with old incandescent or halogen globes.
We carry with us a range of lamps which will help save costs every minute they run.  Our 9w LED lamps give out as much light as an old 60w incandescent or its 42w Halogen replacement that is using either a 1/4 or 1/6 of the power of the old lamp, and they last 20+ times as long saving in the cost of purchasing new lamps and hassle of replacing them.

And HalogenDown Lights..... they were all the rage some years ago and were installed by the dozen into many properties and yet they each take about 60w to run. (50w lamp & 10w transformer)  We have replacement LED down lights which give the same light for 10w, one sixth of the running costs, and they last 20-40 times as long.  The LED Down lights we use currently have 5 year warranty.  Also Halogen down lights can be a fire risk if installed poorly due to the heat they put out, whilst LEDs run relatively cool by comparison with no such fire risks.  (See $$$ example below)

Air Conditioners:
Modern Inverter AC units can have a co efficient of power as high as 4.35.  That is that for every Kw of Electricity they use they produce almost 4 Kw of cooling.  for instance a 2.5kW of cooling  Mitsubishi Heavy Industries AC unit uses only 575 watts of power.  (2.5/0.575= 4.35COP), where as old "window rattler" Room AC's could be as inefficient as a COP of 1.5, using almost 3 times as much to run at full capacity. When you add in the variable speed control and other energy saving features of the modern units it is possible to use less than one third of the power of an old "Rattler" style AC unit and approx half of the power of an old "fixed speed" Split system AC unit.  It may make $$ sense to replace your old AC unit for a more efficient unit and then not only enjoy the benefits of quieter, more even temperatures, but also save money on running costs.

We can discuss this further at an energy audit and make it specific to your installation.  

Refrigerators:
I was shocked to discover a few years ago when retiring our old (1993) faithful cyclic defrost 390litre traditional top freezer fridge that it used as much power as our new 615litre double door fridge complete with its Ice and Water dispenser.  Again as refrigeration technology, like that in the Ac units, has improved there have been leaps forward in energy efficiency in fridges.  
Also worth considering if you need that second fridge running all the time as it can be costing $5-10+/week 

Solar:  See our Solar Page for ways a solar system can save you power and therefore $$$

Halogen Downlight Example:

Kitchen & Family room with 10 down lights in it running for 2hrs morning & 6hrs evening> 8hr/day> 365 days a year

10 x 60w x 8 hrs x 365days = 1 752 000whr or 1752 Kwh (as our power is sold to us)
1752Kwh x $0.2792 (what Origin charge for power inc GST) = $489.16/yr

as apposed to:

10 x 10w x 8hr x 365days = 292 000whr or 292Kwh
292Kwh x $0.2792 = $81.52

A saving of:  $489.16-81.52 = $ 407.64 per year 
and this doesn't include the replacement lamps as the average halogen lamp is rated to 2000-3000hrs which is about one lamp per year per fitting.  (8hrs a day 365 day = 2920hrs/yr)
So add 10 x Lamps per year x $7/lamp = $70/yr  

$477.64 per year better off with the New LED Fittings 

Replacement cost (approx) of 10 x Halogen D/lights for LED fittings.
10 x fittings $25inc gst = $250 + Replacement Labour $220 = Total:  $470 

Pay back period = Cost of work/ yearly savings
                             = $470/$477.64
                             = 0.98 years

Replacing these 10 x halogen down lights for $470 pays for itself in less than a year and then continues to save $477.64 / yr that seems like a good investment.

$477.64/$470 = 1.016  > a 101.6% return on investment!!! 

Note:  This example was for lights used regularly and does reduce a little for lights used less or if less lights are in a room. Some lights might take more labour to replace and add small cost.