Learning to Conserve

As a international student, I’m learning on how to of live independently outside the comforts of my family home. I had never thought of paying electricity bills in my home country before, since I have my parents paying for them, and they never really communicated about it. But now I’m here living by myself, rent and electricity bills are something that I have to deal with — it’s like a rite of passage to be an independent adult.

Saving money on electricity bills have been on my mind recently, and this assignment to do a bodystorming for conserving energy came at a great timing. As the first step of the bodystorming experiment, I will list all the devices that I am using and try to calculate how much they consume energy. From that I will list things that I will do for two weeks in an attempt to reduce my energy expenditure to 4kW in a day.

Here are the list of electrical devices and appliances that i use, along with their specs :

1. Smartphone (Samsung A52s)
   17.37 Wh.
2. Tablet (Ipad Pro 10.5 inch)
   30.4 Wh.
3. Laptop (ThinkPad P15v Gen 1)
   68 Wh.
4. Hair Dryer (Philips Airstyler Ion)
   1 kWh, 0.25 kW for 15 minutes.
5. Electric stove (Indesit)
   ~2kW, 0.5 kW for 15 minutes
6. Microwave (Melchioni)
   0.7 kWh, 0.175 kW for 15 minutes
7. Washing machine (Telefunken)
   2.1 kWh
8. Fridge (Atlantic ATY26W, Class F)
   ~0.7 kW for 24 hours
9. Air Conditioner (Mitsubishi Electric PFKY-P20VBM-E)
   2.2 kWh
10. Lights (Philips LED light bulb)
    0.1 kWh

Assuming that in a day I use smartphone for 12 hours, tablet and laptop for 4 hours, hair dryer for 15 minutes, electric stove twice for 15 minutes, microwave for reheating for 15 minutes, washing machine for one hour, fridge on for 24 hours, air conditioner for 4 hours, and lights for 5 hours, I would be spending about…

=17.37*12/1000+(30.4+68)*4/1000+0.25+0.5*2+0.175+2.1+0.7+2.2*4+0.1*5

=13.93 kW per day.

Which is 3.5 times bigger than my target expenditure, which is 4kW per day.

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As I was listing the items and looking up the energy consumption, I feel introspective and guilty about my energy consumption. Some of the items that I use often, like the AC for example, turns out to use up a lot of energy more than I expected. I came up with some things I can do to reduce my energy consumption as much as I can, which I will try to do in the experiment.

Things that I will try to do in this two-week experiment :

1. Apply battery saving mode in phone, tablet, and laptop
2. Making sure to turn off unneeded lights and AC
3. Do laundry manually
4. Do less cooking — cook in bulk, or eat more no-cook meals
5. Air-dry my hair
6. Spend more time outside in co-working or public spaces
7. Find alternative entertainment or activities to lessen phone and social media usage

Throughout these two weeks, I will document my journey and share my process, tips, successes and struggles that I will face.

Hope this experiment will run smoothly and be insightful for myself and others. Wish me luck!