You can help reduce the needed energy production from dirty coal and other non-renewable resources – just by running your dishwasher and other appliances at night.
The demand for electricity is higher in the daytime than at night, particularly during office hours. The increase in demand starts in the morning when people and businesses switch on their lighting and other electricity-consuming devices, and peaks around mid-day.
Power sources largely have to produce electricity close to the time it will be used, since there aren’t really any good solutions for long-term storage of large quantities of electricity.
This means that we have to be able to produce enough electricity simultaneously to satisfy the mid-day peak in demand. The higher the peak, the more power plants we need.
With most countries in the world getting the majority of their electricity from coal, these new power plants will most often be dirty coal-fired ones.
By shifting our electricity use away from the daytime in general and mid-day peak in particular, we might prevent the building of them.
So, if you wash your laundry, start the dishwasher and run any other electricity-consuming appliances and gadgets as late in the evening as possible (or in the nighttime), you’ll do your part in helping prevent the building of new coal power plants.
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This post was tagged with: appliances, energy production, energy use, greener energy, power sources
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Great tip! We don’t have a dishwasher (to be remedied in july), but I do the same for washes. I’m an early bird so I start loads super early on saturday and sunday mornings to be done with them around 10am. By then, the rest of the building gets up and I starts taking showers and such and I’m done using hot water. I’ve been hanging-to-dry more and more which means that loads go by fast!
Another tip : Eveluate how “dirty” your clothes really are! Do they need to wash for full 48 minute cycles? We use the “quick wash” setting on cold for both wash and rinse, which is a total of 28 minutes. Those shorter cycles REALLY add up!
Once again, great read!
@Yanic A: Thanks for commenting again, always nice to have you drop by
That’s a great tip regarding the “dirtiness” of your clothes. Most modern washing machines do a very good job at washing clothes. If you’re not in a particularly dirty job, they’ll usually be clean enough on a short cycle at a low temperature.