How to optimise your geyser’s energy consumption

Geysers are big power consumers and can equate to a substantial percentage of your monthly electricity bill. Finding ways to optimise your geyser consumption can make a meaningful difference to your wallet. This is especially true when you have more than one geyser on your property and/or you own secondary properties, for example, guest houses, casually rented-out units, and/or holiday homes.

The aforementioned properties can benefit greatly from geyser optimisation simply due to the fact that there may be periods when the property is unoccupied. Geysers are “dumb” in the sense that they continuously heat up water to the pre-determined temperature set on the geyser cylinder. As such, it would make sense to have the geyser turned off completely when the property is not occupied.

Apart from the tedious exercise of trying to flick switches in your DB manually to achieve a saving, you may not even live on the property you are trying to control. This is where automation comes into play.

By leveraging a smart device installed between the DB and geyser, and then complimenting this with a beautifully designed user interface and pre-configured automation to suit your specific requirements, we can reduce your monthly expenditure and provide you with full control of your property, all accessible through a smart device.  

How much could you actually save?

A 200 litre geyser can consume anywhere between 5kWh (kilowatt hours) and 15kWh per day depending on the number of users and the length of their hot water usage. Taking an average of 10kWh to heat a single geyser daily, multiplied by the current electricity price of around R1,83 per kWh (dependent on your usage tier). This equates to approximately R567.30 per month. 

Now, imagine you have 10 units with an occupancy rate of 20 days per month. By optimising your geysers, you could save around R2,013.00 per month. That is a meaningful saving. 

You’re liking this but aren’t sure how it would work for you as your properties are scattered all over the show. This is where a system that is fully scalable and interlinked is useful.

It wouldn’t matter if you had 3 properties in Cape Town and 2 in Johannesburg. Each property would be consolidated into a single user interface providing you with hassle-free access and useful insights into metrics such as daily and monthly consumption.

Taking things a step further with solar

Let’s say you have a 5kw (or bigger) inverter with solar panels feeding power to your property.

It’s highly likely that your system is under-utilised for large portions of the day as the system would not be configured to include big appliances such as your geyser. This could be because you were told that it would overload the inverter and drain your batteries. While in principle this can be true, by taking advantage of your current system and introducing smart control and automation of these big appliances, we could optimise your existing setup to include your geyser and provide you with further savings. 

Geyser optimisation is one aspect of creating a smart home and the beauty of our system is that you can leverage our core offering to expand into smart lighting, security/access control, and solar system optimisation – all accessible through the same user interface.

Getting started

We offer a range of products that can get you started with your automation journey.

If you’re DIY inclined, head on over to our Smart Device Section where you will be able to purchase the necessary smart products. For geysers with a heating element up to 4000w, we recommend the Sonoff POWR3 and for geysers up to 3000w, we recommend the Sonoff POW Elite.

Alternatively, reach out and let us provide you with an end-to-end customised solution based on your requirements.

To find out more about our energy optimisation, click here