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By Roselyne Sachiti
ALMOST every morning, the Letters to the Editor and SMS columns publish letters of people complaining about Zesa’s poor service delivery and high electricity bills.
The letters bearing all sorts of handwriting come from all corners of the country and show how people from different walks of life have had enough of Zesa’s poor service.
In buses, commuter omnibuses and even in bars, tales of how electricity bills and outages affect the day-to-day life of masses have become the order of the day.
Others have even gone to the extent of suggesting that Zesa should be called “Zimbabwe Electricity Shortage Authority or Zimbabwe Electricity Sometimes Available”, because of the continued absence of power.
Another group has found a way out of the load-shedding and simply stopped depending on Zesa electricity. This is the group that is now using the God-given solar energy and seems to be at peace with the power authority. These are the people who now use solar powered refrigerators, geysers, cellphone chargers and lights among many others.
But, while many are angry and blame Zesa for poor service, are consumers doing enough to save the little electricity available?
Do consumers know which appliances use the most electricity in the home and result in some of the huge bills they receive every month?
Many people interviewed by The Herald strongly believe that when they turn off an electrical appliance it does not use any power.
“Zesa are just overcharging us and I do not know why they send me a US$160 bill every month. My husband and I are both employed and we only spend the day at home on Saturdays and Sundays. We use electricity at night only as no one spends the day at home during the week,” says Mrs Caroline Mafa of the Avenues.
She says she uses a hairdryer and hot comb every morning, boils between 10 and 12 jugs of bath water in an electric kettle every morning and evening and believes this does not eat up much energy. She also adds that she sometimes forgets to switch off their decoder, DVD and sometimes their television is left on sleep mode. Their two cellphone chargers are always plugged in even if they are not charging. But the painful reality is that the gadgets Mrs Mafa uses consume a lot of electricity. She is not alone, many others are not aware of this.
According to gogreeninyourhome.com, most electrical devices in homes still use electricity while turned off. Some appliances never actually turn off, they still consume power in standby power mode.
“Some electrical appliances in homes are in a standby power mode, but still consume power because of the way their power supplies are built. This is called vampire energy, phantom energy, electricity leak, or leaking electricity,” says the journal.
The journal explains that any electrical device that has an external power supply connected to it will still use electricity while powered off. These are cellphone chargers, computer speakers and any of those electrical devices with a cubed power supply on it. Also any electrical appliances that have a clock, LED, light, or LCD panel on it will also use electricity while turned off. These include microwaves, coffee makers, TVs, VCRs, DVD players, etc.
“Any devices that have a standby or sleep power modes will still consume electricity. Most TVs and set top cable boxes never actually turn off, they just go into a standby mode. Computer monitors and computers are the same.
“Most computers will still keep power to the motherboard for different functions such as ethernet cards/network cards, modems, USB hubs, etc,” adds the journal.
The electricity consumed by electrical appliances while they are turned off depends on the electrical appliance. The range of electricity used by these electricity leaking appliances are anywhere from one watt to 50 watts of electricity!
“Now one watt doesn’t sound like a lot, which it isn’t, but when you have 20+ electrical appliances in your home using just one watt of power, that’s 20 watts being used!
“A single cellphone charger will consume one watt while plugged into the wall, even without a phone plugged into it. The same cellphone charger will also consume 4,5 watts of electricity with a cellphone plugged into it that is already fully charged. The same cellphone charger will consume eight watts of power while charging a cellphone,” explains the journal.
A stand-alone digital video recorder set top box will consume 48,5 watts of power while turned off. A digital cable DVR set top box will consume 43,5 watts of electricity while turned off, while a digital cable box without DVR will consume 33 watts of electricity.
A satellite set top box with or without DVR will consume 33,5 watts of power while turned off.
Almost everyone has a TV in their home, so how much electricity do TVs consume while turned off?
Rear projection TV will consume 48,5 watts of electricity while it is turned off! A standard CRT TV will consume 13 watts while turned off.
Most people have a mini stereo system, one of those with speakers, CD player, AM/FM radio, etc all built into one unit. They will consume 24,5 watts of power while turned off. Most people have one of these in the bedroom, living room, or kids bedroom.
A home theatre audio receiver that most people have hooked up to their TVs in the living room will consume 19,5 watts of electricity while it is turned off. So with just the few things mentioned above, that’s a lot of money per year just for electrical devices turned off for 16 hours every day.
Most people probably have more than one of each of those items in their homes that are turned off, but still plugged in consuming power.
According to Zesa, large poorly insulated geyser uses 3kW of electricity or 3kWh (units) every hour. If it is on only half the day, it adds 1 080 units or US$100 to your bill every month! A standard 150-litre geyser should cost U$50 per month with only five family members.
A pool or borehole pump running 24×7 costs US$72 per month. A two-plate cooker or stove being used to cook sadza every meal will cost 2kW 6 hours/day x US$36 per month.
A fridge uses on average 150kWh or US$15 per month.
Each light left on all night costs US$3,60, so a small house with 10 lights will cost US$36 per month with 100W bulbs.
A heater will take two units per hour, so leaving it on all night will add US$72 per month.
A high-density suburb house with one family can expect to use US$87 per month. A high-density suburb house with three families living in it, a geyser and three heaters in winter can expect to pay US$460 in a month.
“Load-shedding does not reduce your usage much, this is because the power is used simply at another time of the day.
“Only extended faults will reduce usage. In this case, speak to your local Zesa office with your meter reading to have your bill adjusted. We urge our customers to pay their bills to enable us to import electricity and probably reduce load-shedding,” said Zesa’s public relations manager, Mr Fullard Gwasira.
Mr Gwasira says there are three main ways to save money and save electricity by stopping electrical appliances from leaking electricity.
Some methods work better than others, but are not as convenient.
“The cheapest and most effective is just by unplugging electrical appliances when they are not in use. This method works great as there will be no electrical usage at all since the electrical appliance is completely unplugged and cannot use any electricity at all. This method is the cheapest as you don’t have to buy anything new,” he said.
Mr Gwasira suggested that the next cheapest and least effective method is buying a standard surge protector and plugging devices into surge protectors, when not in use, turn off the power switch which will cut off power to all the devices plugged into the power strip.
“Standard power strips and surge protectors are priced well and will pay for themselves if you turn them off and stop your electrical appliances from using electricity while turned off.
“The reason this method is not as effective as you
would think, is that each surge protector will still consume electricity, so even though all your electrical appliances are not, the surge protector will still consume around six watts of electricity. So it is still a great method to use and cheap as well.”
“The next cheapest method and second most effective is using a smart power strip or smart surge protector. The smart surge protectors will cut off power automatically to only the devices that are turned off, while still powering the devices that are turned on and in use,” he adds.
These smart surge protectors cost about the same or slightly more than regular surge protectors, but use less electricity and you don’t have to turn off the power button when you’re done with your devices, just simply turn that appliance off! The smart surge protectors will still consume electricity when not in use, but not as much as normal surge protectors.
The smart surge protectors will consume around one watt while in use and less than 0,25 watts while turned off.
So the next time we leave our homes, let’s make sure that we prevent electricity leaks and save our hard-earned cash.
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