When we talk about energy saving, most of you remember being carefree children at home and the adults being in a constant need to urge you to switch off the lights or the television or the washing machine. Now that you are an adult, you understand why it was important to actually do things such as switching off the lights when you leave a room.
Energy saving has been an elusive quest for many of us living in urban developed cities. We need energy for everything in our household and it is one of the earmarks of modern living and convenience. We use energy for everything in the home and in the office and basically to perform daily tasks.
Energy use can be divided into many different ways but the most common is through the end product — either electricity; thermal energy, which is heating/cooling (including hot water); or transportation. You can also break down energy into its end-users, which are described below.
Residential
When we talk about residential uses of energy, these are the most basic uses of energy. They include watching television, washing clothes, heating and lighting the home, taking a shower, working from home on your laptop or computer, running appliances, and cooking. Residential uses of energy account for almost forty percent of total energy use globally.
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Waste in this category of use is also the highest globally. This can be attributed to the lack of education offered to the public on how to conserve the energy they use daily, or to the lack of energy consumption products available in the market. Most people are ignorant to the fact that there are avenues or companies and innovations available that can help them monitor and reduce the amount of energy they use.
Commercial use of energy is what energy is used for in the commercial sector. This includes heating, cooling, and lighting of commercial buildings and spaces, and power used by companies and businesses throughout our cities for computers, fax machines, workstations, and copiers just to name but a few.
The uses of energy in the commercial space is more or less similar to the uses in the industrial space save for personal uses. Energy saving here though, is targeted at the corporate world rather than at individuals. Players in the sector of energy conservation should introduce energy-saving campaigns in order to curb the culture of waste present at our places of work.
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Transportation
Transportation is one hundred percent dependent on energy. Over seventy percent of the petroleum used goes into the transport sector. The transport sector includes all vehicles from personal cars to trucks to buses and motorcycles. It also includes aircraft, trains, ship,s and pipelines.
The transportation sector can be very vital in the overall quest for energy conservation. Innovations such as the introduction of more fuel-efficient vehicles and the development of alternative sources of energy for our transport system can greatly help in saving of energy
Efforts at energy conservation can be made on a global scale if we factor in the uses and deal with them one by one. If we focus on them as individual uses rather than trying to find a solution as a whole, we will make much bigger strides in conservation.
