COVIDTRICITY

Hello, welcome to another week of lockdown. Oops, that would mean using more electric power to charge phones, watch TV, power laptops, fans, microwave and any other gadgets we may want to use within this period.

While this may be needed, the question would be how many of us are used to doing power management or even have a dedicated record book for tracking power consumption. This is very simple and easy to learn and adopt by many if not all. However, I must say it works better for those of us using the prepaid meter. First of all, get a small book or a number of A4 sheets,  this is to help you record readings of power consumption. If you have already loaded power that’s fine, just start by reading the amount of power on the meter first thing in the morning after you’ve turned off all lights in the house.

Record your readings in your book or on your A4, again it is important if you put a specific time to your readings and be committed to it. Let’s say you chose to ready at 6:30 am every morning and then you read in the evening at the same time, this time while recording your findings kindly take keynote of all electrical gadgets used during the day and that includes all electrical bulbs used indoors in the course of the day. Deduct your morning recordings from that which is recorded in the evening also before lights are put on to get the exact amount of power that has been used in that day bearing in mind all electrical gadgets that were in use.
Again, at night it is expected that most gadgets would be off excluding TV sets, electric bulbs, fans, and air conditioners.

Record again the next morning to get the amount consumed at night and remember to do deduct that from the last consumption recorded the previous evening to get consumption levels, do this religiously for a week or more and observe consumption level of your house and identify which gadgets consume more power during which time of the day to enable you to control the use of power. During this time, it is advisable to watch TV or listen to radio programs together as a family to minimize the use of power.
Remember electricity is not entirely free, you still pay 50%  of your monthly consumption bill!