Taking Control of your Electric Bill
What you need to know about your appliances' consumption to understand your electric bill
This video training on "Power, Energy and your Electric bill" gives the you an understanding of where your electricity bills come from. The most important concept here to understand is the difference between Power and Energy, kiloWatt and kiloWatt-hour. One is based on the appliances power consumption and the other is the basis for which our utility company (i.e. Meralco) charges us. It's a bit technical but not too technical.
This is the introductory lecture to a 3 part series on how we can energy through solar energy, what solar power systems are used to achieve savings or independence from the grid, and the necessary solar hardware components to make those savings and/or independence happen.
In the end, we want your kWh consumption to go down, whether through conservation of energy or through the use of alternative energy sources. Although we are biased towards solar energy from the sun :). Having a solid understanding of what our kWh consumption is, or how many kWh we want to offset or replace, is the key point in reducing your electric bill. It also should be the key parameter in determining how many solar panels you need before even before you even think of buying one solar panel for your house or business establishment.
Notes:
1) The lecture gives you the foundation on which to develop and start working on your own solar power system (which you will learn in "Solar power system design and installation" course). Click the link here for details:
2) The units are in Pesos but you could plug in any rate (US$/kWh) to get your electric bill. This is in case you are outside of the Philippines, where this lecture is based.
Your Instructor
Gerry is the Founder/CEO of Amatera Solar Technology Inc., a company started in 2013 to address the growing concerns of Filipinos with rising electricity rates and unstable power situation in the Philippines. Before starting Amatera, Gerry worked in the semiconductor industry managing a team of engineers in the development of integrated circuits (ICs). His interests are in electronics, microcontrollers, storage batteries, integrated circuits and anything related to solar energy.
Course Curriculum
After understanding what kiloWatts and kiloWatt-hours are about, the difference between power and energy, and what really contributes to your electric bill, the next step is to reduce it through the power of the sun. After you've done everything to conserve energy and reduce your power requirements to the bare minimum, then the next step is to produce your own power so that some of your energy requirements is replaced by solar energy, or power from the sun.
Learn about the two main types of solar power systems available to achieve energy independence and savings in the next course. (Click on the link below)