Show me the money

Energy efficiency – a nice big fat and ripe low hanging fruit, or if you get tired of that phrase someone recently suggested to me using ‘slow moving meat.’  Something for us to get our teeth into, a nice bite for our buck.  

 

There are so many studies that show you how much electricity you can save by changing from an incandescent bulb to CFL, or that LED’s are the way forward; get rid of your magnetic ballast for your fluorescent tube and get yourself an electronic one instead.  Eskom’s DSM site has a calculator on it which shows you how much electricity you purchase every month just because of your 100W incandescent bulb, if you use it for 4 hours a day. Nice. Very useful. Thanks.  What I also want to know though is what bulb I should replace it with, and how much does it cost me. 

 

Let’s try using the internet, a wonderful tool at my fingertips.  I can find out EVERYTHING about CFLs.  I can see what their lux levels are, their life in hours, their wattage, the way they offer a warm white glow, but nowhere on any site I’ve seen is there a price. 

 

And it’s not just lighting shops.  I’ve been looking for pool covers to cut down on pool pump expenditure, wind turbines, solar panels, solar water heaters…  Is everyone terrified of committing to a price?  I don’t even need a commitment, give me a ballpark figure.  What is the internet there for anyway?  Every site in South Africa needs you to write or call in for a quote.  

 

I’m working on a tool which will show you which technology can replace the one you have, and how much it will cost you and how much it will save you.  It’s very hard work.  I’m not that great on the phone…