A significant part of electricity consumption in Portugal happens at home. And it is a doubly heavy bill: on the one hand, for households, who see a significant part of their monthly budget for the payment of energy bills; and on the other hand, the environment, because electricity production generates pollution and increases everyone's ecological footprint.

That is why it is so important to reduce electrical consumption, because it allows to add the useful to the pleasant: to save the environment, while saving the wallet. Keep some tips to get it done.


1. Enjoy natural light
During the day avoid turning on lights and take advantage of natural light by opening windows and blinds well. During the winter the entrance of sunlight will help warm the house, practice that should be avoided in summer in the hours of higher heat, because it will make the house warmer and increase cooling needs.

2. Install LED bulbs
LED lamps are doubly advantageous: they last much longer, reaching an average of 9 years, while traditional lamps hardly go beyond 1 year and a half, which will save you some money with lamps; and still consume less energy to give the same light intensity.

Another of the care to have is to think if you really need all the lamps you have installed. Just because it has bearings on the ceiling doesn't mean you had to use them all, so have a critical attitude and think that every bulb removed is more of a contribution to savings.

3. Unplug the electrical appliances from the
Not leaving electrical appliances on standby is a good principle not to waste more energy, but did you know that the appliances even being only connected to the current are already consuming energy? Therefore, on all equipment that does not need to be in continuous operation, the best option is to even unplug them. A good investment can be the extensions with switches, just by pressing the button to turn off the electric current.

4. Take advantage of bi-hourly rates
This council is part of Coopérnico, the country's only renewable energy cooperative, which says that changing the contract to a bi-hourly tariff and trying to focus on higher energy consumption in the empty period can generate savings in electricity bills and reduce carbon emissions. The reason is that in the empty period corresponds to the period in which wind energy production is more intense and there is a reduction in energy production from fossil sources.

5. Use kitchen appliances well
Appliances are important sources of consumption, especially those located in the kitchen. There is therefore some care that is important to take to ensure that you do not expend more energy than necessary:

• Do not abuse the use of the oven and when using it avoid opening it several times so as not to lower the temperature and force a higher consumption to reheat;
• Switch off the stove a few minutes before the food is prepared, taking advantage of the residual heat accumulated in the container;
• Avoid opening the refrigerator too often because it involves additional cooling effort, spending more energy:
• Move the refrigerator away from heat sources and move it 10cm away from the wall;
• Wash clothes and dishes only with full load, to reduce the number of washand avoid unnecessary energy expenditures;
• Wash clothes and dishes in cold water whenever possible

Try these tips and you'll see that you'll notice the effects on your electricity bills, with the bonus of preserving the environment and contributing to a change that depends on each of us.

In blog CreditoaHabitacao.com