Cutting bills by changing habits

Dubai: In a fast-paced world, it is very easy to find hundreds of excuses for not doing your bit to conserve energy. Maybe you're just too busy juggling house, kids, family and work to be worrying about the environment.

Or you probably think that conserving electricity and water is too impossible to do, but small changes in your habits can add up to save not just the natural resources but money, too.

A couple of months after going through a series of brownouts that hit Sharjah last summer, Lorena was admittedly disappointed to see her utility bills skyrocket.

"Our bill just shot through the roof, climbing from Dh1,000 a month in the middle of last year to as much as Dh1,500. That's totally upsetting," she says.

The married expat makes an average salary as a personal assistant in Dubai, and although she shares the monthly bill with three housemates, she doesn't like shelling out extra cash.

She's not only saving every dirham she could spare to finish building her house in the Philippines, she also has some financially dependent relatives to look after.

"I'm here to save money like everybody else and I don't want additional expense, unless it's really necessary."

Lorena and her housemates decided to change their habits, and recently discovered some clever ways of reducing electricity use.

"We realised we had never been conscious about how we use the electrical appliances at home, so we agreed to implement some rules."

Paying attention

"We started by paying attention to the little things we do in the house, from switching off unnecessary lights to cooking rice, watching TV, ironing and washing clothes. We thought that if we could minimise these activities and make sure every single power-operated item in the house is turned off and unplugged when not in use, we could reduce our monthly bill."

And sure they did, and about a month later, the household's utility bill started to drop slightly. "Since then, we tried hard to stick to our rules and the bills just kept dropping. It was indeed a good improvement."

And when it was time to replace the old washing machine and get a new TV set, Lorena knew exactly what to do.

"We shopped around for so-called ‘energy-efficient' products so that we could reduce our monthly bills further."

Lorena took home a flat-screen TV that has an automatic turn-off function and a front-load washing machine that consumes less water. The price tags were a bit heavy on the wallet, though, but Lorena thought it was worth the investment.

"We made sure we got the latest models because we were told they're the most energy-efficient. We checked the specifications to see they don't consume a lot of electricity. They were a bit expensive, but I figured I'd save more in the long run."

From November to February this year, Lorena and her housemates have been paying less and less for electricity and water. "Now, we're just paying about Dh500. That's a huge improvement from the Dh1,500 we used to pay last year," she says.

Pro-environment advocates have been promoting responsible use of electricity and water, as energy resources around the world are slowly depleting due to rising demand.

According to the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), every person uses 20,000 kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity per year and 130 gallons of water daily, putting Dubai among the cities with the highest consumption and carbon footprint per capita in the world.

As of 2007, the World Bank placed power consumption in the UAE at 16,165 kwh per person, much higher than in advanced countries like United States or the most populous, China and India.

Like Lorena, Christine Lacson and her family in Dubai have recently implemented an energy management programme at home.

"We've got to find ways to cut our monthly bill because inflation is inevitable. In fact, what I'm paying now is 60 per cent more than what I used to pay in 2004."

"Besides, our energy bill in Dubai is 30 per cent more expensive than what a household would normally pay back in our home country. This is indeed a big factor in our budget," she says.

The household now strictly follows a set of rules: Never turn on the heater, even during winter. The air-conditioning unit should not be used between 7am and 9pm and no electrical appliance should be operated during peak hours, from noon to 5pm, especially during the summer months.

"Doing the laundry and ironing of clothes is limited to twice a week. We watch TV altogether and we make it a point that all appliances are unplugged before we leave the house for the day," the Filipino expatriate says.

"I think we've done the best we could to minimise energy consumption."

Their efforts apparently paid off. Lacson's Dewa bills have been relatively steady over the last year.

Consumers to pay more for utility services this year

Dubai consumers will pay more for their utility bills this year, unless they take some energy saving measures.

In January, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) raised electricity charges from 20 to 23 fils per kilowatt hour (kwh) for monthly consumption below 2,000 kwh, and from 33 fils to 38 fils per kwh for consumption of more than 6,000 kwh.

Markus Oberlin, general manager of facilities management company and sustainability consultants Farnek Avireal, calculates that on average, bills this year will increase by around 15 per cent over 2010.

Since there was a previous rise on March 1, 2008, Oberlin says a typical villa in Jumeirah with a previous annual energy bill of Dh23,850 in January 2008 will see an increase of up to 70 per cent from January 2011 to around Dh40,500.

Likewise, a hotel of around 20,000 square metres which used to pay Dh1.5 million every year will spend over Dh3 million this year.

To reduce the impact of the latest Dewa tariff adjustments, Oberlin urges residents to take the following measures: