Most people don't realise it but lighting in our homes and offices account for a large part of electricity load consumption. Yes we all say that we are using energy saving bulbs but I ask you this, are you using the right ones. You see truth is that energy saving bulbs are not the cheapest on the shelf. So if you paid between N100 & N200 for your bulbs then you probably have sub-standard products.
I have seen energy saving bulbs rated at 120W actually consume about 300W or 6W LED lights actually consume about 35W and in reality for the lumen (brightness) that the bulbs were producing you could have gotten a good 30w-45W energy saving bulb that would produce even better light. So now with all of this number talk, how does it relate to load management & my inverter. Well, we all have bulbs in our homes/offices and if not properly managed it can lead to wasted energy.
How many bulbs have you got? Think about it, even a one bedroom apartment would have at least 6-8 bulbs. If you had 15W bulbs which are most common, that alone would be 90W-120W. Not much you say, well that's consumed every hour because appliances power consumption is rated hourly. That means for 6 bulbs you would consume 2160W in 24hours. You can imagine what that number would be if you had say 40 bulbs all on. In Nigeria we are not really accustomed to managing power, we don't have much of it anyway but as the power becomes better & as we learn to manage our inverters better, it becomes useful. First thing's first, you need to get the right bulbs. LED bulbs are the best when it comes to power management. They might be a bit expensive but well worth it. If you get 5W bulbs, even at 40 pieces you would be consuming only 200 watts an hour and that's if you have all your bulbs on at the same time. And the load management I am talking about doesn't only apply to bulbs, how many times do we leave our TV's on while we are not watching them, our fridges in Nigeria are normally set to the highest thermostat point, when we could be saving energy by setting them to the recommended setting. Turning off your computers, decoders and media appliances when not in use would go a long way too. Getting your load management right is the key to getting your inverters power time to stretch. As long as your batteries are good and you are using it properly (click here for some guidelines) you will enjoy it to the fullest. Thank you for reading and if you have any question or comments please send them to me @ julian@crimsonelectricng.com
Have a great day.
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