On Malaysia Budget 2009 And Electricity Consumption
Budget 2009 for Malaysia was announced on 1 September 2008. Among the highlights of Budget 2009 was that households with electricity bills below RM20 would be excempt from paying. There’s been plenty of talk about how this wouldn’t benefit the average house owner. To put this to the test, WL and I have commited to an experiment to bring our monthly electricity bill below the RM20 mark.
New electricity tariff rates for domestic consumption
| TARIFF CATEGORY | UNIT | RATES |
|---|---|---|
| First 200 kWh (1 - 200 kWh) per month | sen/kWh | 21.80 |
| Next 800 kWh (201 - 1,000 kWh) per month | sen/kWh | 28.90 |
| Over 1,000 kWh (1,001 kWh onwards) per month | sen/kWh | 31.20 |
| The minimum monthly charge is RM3.00 | ||
To achieve this goal, we have to first understand our current consumption. We just received our latest bill of RM33.55 (about 153kWh). That’s about average according to previous month’s bills. Based on the latest tariffs by TNB and to keep within the budget of RM20, we need to use less than 91kWh. That means we’re currently 62kWh above the allowance.
With that as the baseline, we needed to figure out what was contributing to the consumption. That was easier said than done. Fortunately, I found a few sites that helped to find out how much electricity something uses and provided some estimates on the electricity consumption of common domestic appliances.
Using these articles and making some creative guesses, I’ve derived the following table of consumption and estimated reductions for achieving our goal:
| Appliance | Consumption (W) | Usage | Monthly Usage | Possible Reductions | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % | Usage | ||||
| Water heater | 3800 | 20mins/day | 38.8 | 50 | 19.4 |
| Fridge | - | ~880W/day | 27.3 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Floor Fan | 100 | 8hrs/day | 25.0 | 25 | 6.3 |
| Lighting | 60 | 3 x 4hrs/day | 22.2 | 33 | 7.4 |
| Ceiling Fan | 95 | 4hrs/day | 11.8 | 50 | 5.9 |
| Laptop | 45 | 2 x 4hrs/day | 11.2 | 100 | 11.2 |
| Washing Machine | 780/wash | 12 washes | 9.4 | 33 | 3.1 |
| 19″ TV | 75 | 2hrs/day | 4.6 | 100 | 4.6 |
| Kettle | 1500 | 5min/day | 3.9 | 100 | 3.9 |
| Wifi (15v x 0.7A) |
10.5 | 4hrs/day | 1.3 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Router (5v x 1.2A) |
6 | 4hrs/day | 0.7 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Total | 156.2 | 61.8 | |||
Looks about right. Let’s see how much is the bill a month down the line.
Related posts:
Electricity Consumption Experiment… Failed!
Year 2006 Electricity Tariffs Increase?
Blackout!
Malaysia Tax E-Filing 2008
PIKOM PC Fair 2009 (II)
Universal Cynic Said,
June 30, 2009 @ 4:18 am
Nice that you tried. I must have some energy-guzzling gizmo around the house… When I start using the kettle only in the evening, saved me RM40 (don’t buy cheap kettle…). Stopped using the aircond for a month, saved another RM20. Still, that’s RM80 in the bill. Must be the “energy-saving” fridge, then.
I stumbled here looking for the domestic rates for 2009. I don’t really understand my bill actually. It doesn’t really show like the rates are supposed to be… And this month, it’s so expensive (like 7 times your average bill.. or twice my average) although I’ve been careful with the usage.
Sometimes I think we’re being ripped off. If our bill’s too low, they’ll come to check the meter. If it’s too high, they charge with confusing tariffs…
Oh, of course, Syabas ripped us off worse before - they’ll bill every three or four months and charge the higher tariff. Only after the change of govt, with the state govt paying the first 20, did they start billing monthly…