Electricity Bills: What You’re Paying For and How to Save

Let’s talk electricity bills. Whether you’re working from home, cooking supper, or firing up the latest episode of Severance, electricity is essential to our everyday life. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come free.

For young Canadians, utility bills can make up a substantial chunk of monthly living expenses. With affordability top of mind for most people (especially for those of us under 30), being aware of what goes into our electricity bill is important. On top of that, knowing a few simple “tricks” to lower our bills can go a long way.

The Basics

Where your electricity comes from depends on where in Canada you live. In most provinces and territories, electricity is sourced from a mixture of natural resources. Some provinces, like Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia, use natural gas or coal for electricity. Others use hydroelectricity and nuclear power – especially BC, Quebec, and Ontario.

Regardless of the input, all electricity makes it way through a complex grid of power generation stations, substations, transformers, and power lines. This process is overseen by large, provincially-regulated utility companies like ENMAX and Ontario Power Generation.

Just like with water, internet, or cable (though who still has cable these days?), we pay these utility companies each month to provide our home with electricity.

Your electricity bill is based on how much electricity you use in a given month. Heat – which represents a huge chunk of monthly utility costs – is sometimes included with electricity on your bill, but is often separated. The biggest electricity draws – that is, the things that drive up your bill the most – tend to be heating/cooling, lights, and large appliances like fridges, washers, and dryers.

Affordability

For young Canadians, affordability is a major concern right now. Home ownership is increasingly a fleeting dream for many people, with food prices, housing, and beef jerky more expensive than ever.

When thinking about reducing monthly spending, recurring utility costs can make up a major portion of our expenses. The average Calgary apartment, for example, costs approximately $350/month for all basic utilities. That’s a decent chunk of your earnings or student loans!

In fact, the high cost of electricity has led to “energy poverty” in communities across Canada, from university students to immigrants and beyond.

Energy poverty refers to the struggles to receive proper heating, cooling, and electricity because of their high costs. Unaffordable energy costs can lead to choosing between electricity and other essential expenses, homes being too cold in the winter, or providers disconnecting utilities.

Access to affordable electricity – and electricity, generally – is a topic for another blog. We’re focused here on cost, not access. Lowering your electricity bill puts dollars back in your pocket.

Lowering your Bill

Here are 3 simple tips to help lower your electricity bill:

1.Switch to energy-efficient gear

It might seem counter-intuitive to have to spend money on new stuff to save money on your electricity bill. However, a little upfront investment can go a long way in shaving dollars off your bill each month – it’ll pay off down the stretch.

Affordable, energy-saving additions you can make (even if you’re renting) include:

• Energy-efficient light bulbs -> You’re probably familiar with colour-changing, app-controlled LED lightbulbs. These are great, but even a less fancy, “regular” LED bulb is more efficient than the old school incandescent bulbs.
• Smart outlets -> These little white boxes stick into your wall between the outlet and whichever appliance you plug into them. Not only do they reduce wasted electricity, they also allow you to control when an appliance is switched on or off.
• Dimmers/motion detectors -> Dimmers, motion-detector switches, and smart switches can help cut down on lighting costs as well. If you’re renting, ask your landlord if installing these is the right move. Then again, who uses the big light anyway?

2.Insulate your space

Depending on how your billing is structured (and if you live in a building where heat is a shared cost), heat can be the largest cost on your monthly electricity bill. A simple way to conserve heat and save money is to bolster your space’s insulation. Insulation slows the flow of heat leaving your home, meaning your heating system doesn’t have to work as hard (thereby saving you money) to keep your home warm.

With a little DIY, you can cheaply bolster your space’s insulation by draft proofing and plugging attic or chimney leaks. Check out this BC Hydro article for draft proofing, and this blog post regarding attics and chimneys.

3.Switch off and unplug

One of the simplest ways to lower your monthly electricity bill is something we’ve all heard from our parents countless times: “quit leaving the lights on!”

It’s true – you can conserve a considerable amount of electricity by remembering to switch off your lights when you leave a room or head out for the day. As a general rule of thumb, try to turn off a light when you’re leaving the room for 15 minutes or more. Though switching off a lightbulb once or twice may not have a material impact on your electricity bill, the savings start to add up when you make it a consistent, long-term habit.

And it’s not just lights. Unplugging appliances when they’re not in use can also save you a measurable amount on your monthly electricity bill.

The logic behind this is that appliances big and small draw electricity even when they’re not in use. Appliances like toasters, dryers, and even laptop chargers use electricity constantly when left plugged in. If you’re not using it for a while, why not unplug it?

Takeaway

Electricity bills aren’t getting any cheaper, regardless of where you live in Canada. You can lower your monthly bill and put money back into your pocket by:

1. Using energy efficient gear
2. Insulating, and
3. Unplugging/turning lights off.

It’s not easy, but it is simple.