Celebrity lighten up challenge

21 Mar 2007

Part of the 2007 Melaleuca Awards, the challenge aims to highlight how we use power and where we save or waste it.

Renee Orr, editor of the Darwin and Palmerston Sun and *COOLmob’s Thea Bray are entering the challenge for their first time. They are among about a dozen Territorians who will be putting themselves up for public scrutiny with their power use.

Both expect their experiences in the challenge will be worlds apart.

As the project manager for COOLmob Thea has an intimate knowledge of the biggest power guzzlers in the home. By implementing a number of simple measures she has managed to keep her quarterly power bill below $150.

“My biggest power guzzler would be our refrigerator,’’ Thea says.

“The things we do to reduce our use of power are simple – we turn off our standby power, we switch the electric hot water off – which can account for around 20 per cent of household electricity use.

“We also use compact fluro lights, use our washing machine and dishwasher only when they are full, and our fans are turned off when we are not in the room.’’

Renee, who arrived in Darwin four months ago from New South Wales, says part of her challenge will be convincing others in her household to help in saving power.“My first quarter bill was almost $300,’’ she says.

“I use my air conditioning each night until around 4am. I’ve noticed there is a big difference between different houses here as to how much cooling they need.

“It never occurred to me that I could save power through turning off the hot water system, and only having it on when I need to use it. And turning off the standby power will make a difference.

“We have a lot of barbecues and so we spend a lot of time outside, which saves on cooling in the house.

“I’m curious as to how much difference these measures will make, not only on how much power we use in our home, but as to how much we can save on our bills.’’

*COOLmob is a project organised by volunteers from the Darwin community working together to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions through improved home energy efficiency, reduced car use and less waste going to landfill.