After reading Peter’s great suggestion on how to make saving electricity fun for the whole family I was again reminded of the conflicting information I keep reading and hearing regarding the usefulness of switching off one’s geyser as a power saving solution. So I set out to resolve the issue once and for all: Can switching off your geyser save electricity or not?

For those of you who have not been reading the papers, the debate is between those who say it does (for what they believe are obvious reasons) and those that say it doesn’t (for what they say are equally obvious reasons).

I’m sorry to say that I haven’t found any definitive answers yet. What I did find though was a crystal clear explanation of what the actual problem is we face in South Africa today (with regards to our electricity problems I mean). And while I still don’t know whether switching off the geyser actually saves any electricity I now do know that switching off my geyser is part of the solution to our electricity woe’s.

The key to understanding our electricity problem and to understand how I can be part of the solution was understanding exactly what our problem was.

There are two kinds of energy shortfalls. The one is a capacity problem and the other is a supply problem. In other words, when we don’t have enough water in our dams then we have a supply problem and we have to use less water. When we don’t have enough pipes to supply the water to everybody who has a tap then we have a capacity problem. And the way you cope with that is to regulate or control when people use their taps.

So while we have an electricity generating (supply) problem through poor planning, that is not actually our problem. We do have a certain amount of electricity available at any one time, just not enough (capacity) if everybody demands it at the same time.

Therefore the solution is to either demand less or spread the demand out better so that everybody is able to still draw the electricity they need.

So reducing your electricity footprint, using less electricity, is going to help for sure. But what will be even more effective in the short terms is to shift when you use electricity. (If you want to read more check out Duncan Drennan's excellent description and discussion on this topic and the source of my enlightenment on the topic.)

Back to the question: to switch off my geyser or not to. The bottom line is that it’s actually irrelevant whether switching of your geyser saves on your monthly electricity bill or not when it comes to being part of the solution. Your geyser is the single biggest consumer of electricity in a home (25%) and by switching it off during a significant part of the day you will be reducing the electricity it demands from the grid and thereby freeing up electricity for more essential users like the mines, hospitals and the like who cannot function at all if they don’t have an uninterrupted power supply.

The numbers look like this: Eskom needs to free up 3000MW during peak times. If a million households shift their 2kW geyser’s on/off cycle to off-peak times then that is a saving of 2000MW.

What are you waiting for? Install a timer on your geyser and get back to doing what you do best.