We just moved into a large apartment. To my horror I have just seen the first electricity bill for only one month, which asks me to pay a 5 digit amount. And it’s not the case that we have our ACs running 24/7. Neighbors told me this is something to be expected in our rather old complex but I’d like to know which devices exactly draw how much electricity to get a better awareness of their impact on the bill. Apparently ACs will be the main consumer but they are so old that I can’t find out by their model numbers and tags how electricity each wall unit really draws. I’d like to know which devices might be worth the investment of replacing them over the years but unfortunately I’m not an expert and do now have any devices to measure this neither the experience.
I know from my home country that there are experienced advisers that can go through your place to find the devices that draw most and make recommendations on what might need to be replaced. For a small fee of course. Is there anything like this in Taiwan, maybe even English speaking?
How big is your apartment, and how much of those space are you cooling?
The amount of electricity used from cooling is directly correlated to the amount of space you are cooling so the key to saving electricity is reducing the amount of space to cool.
5 digits??? Wow…for 2 months?
I live in a 38 ping flat and the worst I had was around 4k TWD for 2 months. (And I know exactly why)
For me something is wrong there… (I got the AC on a lot of the time and no way to reach 5 digits)
In Taiwan, Energy Audit is not very popular for individuals…(I work in a Energy Management company and 100% of our cust are businesses)
You could buy some meters to record your own energy consumption. I’ll check tomorrow if my company got some contacts for individual energy audit.
Top energy sinks (I might forget some)
AC - you have old units so they probably are not good. Additionally if you are cooling a large area then the AC unit works harder
refrigerator - is it old? Does it seal properly?
hot water kettle - an always on hot water kettle draws a lot of power
entry/hallway lights left on 24/7 - people think this is necessary - I am surprised that I don’t see more motion sensor lights in Taiwan
Are you certain that neighbors aren’t tapped into your electicity? Do you use AC on the top floor? These floors are really hot at all times (summer) and it is hard/expensive to cool them.
Did you actually see the bill? Your bill was almost certainly for 2 months. Taipower bills on a 2 month cycle for May/June (billed beginning of July) and July/August (billed in Sept). Ask to see the bill. Ask if a meter reading was done when you moved in to determine your portion of the bill? Or did they just guess? It’s possible that you paid for someone else’s electricity.
the good news is that it gets a lot cheaper. However there are some issues that could remain expensive even in the winter. Hallway/entry lights, neighbors stealing power, inefficient fridge or hot water kettle.
I haven’t heard of these being used in taiwan but in the US I know that you could rent a meter to measure electrical consumption for individual appliances from the power company (or somewhere). If possible this would be a great way to find out what your culprit is before haphazardly replacing stuff.
And before replacing ACs, make sure the insulation, at least the one from the windows, is at least decent. Because sometimes the AC is fine, but you get so much heat from the bad insulation, that AC has to stay on for much longer to compensate, and the bill goes up and up.
Of course, it could also be that someone is hooked onto your electricity, and you’re paying for two households.
I talked to a few neighbours and they told me a bill like this is pretty reasonable here. The record holder I heard brought it up to 60k for a month.
Problem is that we have a REALLY big combined living/family/ining/entrance/hallway room without any walls in between right under the rooftop that can barely be cooled down to 26 °C even if all wall units are turned on.
All the wall units are properly sealed, most of all I’d just like to know if changing them to newer models might be worth it considering the monthly cost. Therefore I’m looking for a professional energy auditor that can look at our consumption without having new AC sales in mind only.
I want to avoid having to buy my own meters since they would be for one time use only.
You picked one of the worst case scenarios for electrical consumption. Big area, top floor, no doors and multiple old AC units running. There’s a reason why this place was available. I’m not surprised at all that your AC costs are astronomical. An energy adviser might help a little but even they can’t perform miracles. This would be even worse if you are at home a lot (you haven’t said). We spend about 5000/mo (at the summer peak) to cool a buxiban (3 classrooms x 6ish hrs), an office, and a common area. And that’s only a school that is open 9ish hours a day. If someone has a family and someone is home with the AC on most of the day then the costs skyrocket.
I think it would be easier to have a drop ceiling installed rather than plywood ceiling but even that has limitations. My buxiban has an external tin roof and drop ceilings and it is still difficult to cool the classroom on the top floor.
You only need one meter. Run it on each appliance for a week (or X number of days). I have no idea if you can rent them or buy them used on ruten/etc but I’m pretty sure you could resell it for 80% of the price you paid.
You really need to decide if you really like this place and want to make the investment and put up with the still high costs to cool it. There is almost no solution that will make your place cheap to cool. Cheaper? Yes, but not cheap or even moderate.
The record holder I heard brought it up to 60k for a month.