How do you bring your energy bill to zero?

More and more people are succeeding in getting net money back from the energy company, or disconnecting themselves from the network. How do they manage that? The coolest gadgets in a row.

You can become independent from the net in two ways. Use less energy or generate your own energy. In most cases it is the combination of the two.

Save energy

You don’t have to generate the energy you save yourself, which reduces your problem. Apparata contains a list of electricity-guzzling appliances that you can replace with economical alternatives. Often with a few small interventions, exchanging the expensive for an economical habit, a lot of profit can be made.

Cheaper interventions are, for example, sticking the well-known reflector foil behind the radiators, blowing the warm air around the radiator into the room with a small fan, draft strips, energy-saving light bulbs and something as simple as a warm sweater and turning the thermostat down considerably.

But there are also smart gadgets with which you can save a lot. Consider, for example, a home automation system that closes the curtains at times when a lot of heat is lost and opens again when you want the sun to warm up the house.

In principle, if you opt for more economical alternatives, you can reduce your daily electricity consumption to two to 3 kWh per day. Then it becomes much easier to generate this energy yourself, even in winter.

Generate your own energy

The most abundant source of energy within your reach is, of course, the sun. On a sunny summer day, the sun at its peak soon radiates more than 1000 watts per square meter. In the spring, summer and autumn you can easily meet your energy requirement of 2-3 kWh with a few solar panels of, for example, a total of 3000 watts. If you store this electricity in a Tesla Powerwall or a cheaper battery, you can also enjoy the energy in sunlight in the evening.

Do you have any space left on your roof? Then you can also install a solar collector. This is a device that heats water using sunlight. This allows you to shower for free most of the year.

But in the winter you do have a problem. One solution is to use small wind turbines. This is especially interesting if you live in a windy area, such as on the coast. The advantage of wind turbines is that they even generate slightly more energy in winter than in summer, both during the day and at night. The downside: only when it’s windy. And that is not always.

So many batteries, if you really want to be completely disconnected from the mains. Or buy a gasoline generator. Otherwise, as long as that is still allowed, you can remain connected to the net and balance. That solves many annoying problems.

Mad scientist solutions

Of course, as an Apparata reader, you would prefer to hear the most pleasantly insane solutions to do something about the energy shortage. And luckily we humans are a fairly eccentric species, so there are plenty of them.

A typical Dutch solution is, for example, swamp gas. Some methane is released from the groundwater from organic substances in the subsoil. Many farms in low-lying areas made use of this, for example for cooking. According to the Brongas.nl association, 50 families still use this remarkable system.

If a stream flows past your house, you can hang a water wheel in it for some free energy.

Do you often throw out garden waste and green waste? You can make your own methane with that, enough even for cooking.

Old frying oil filtered with a coffee filter can be used in an oil lamp.

You can get electricity from the ground yourself, with the help of bacteria. The Wageningen company Plant-E has succeeded in putting a streetlight on this. The advantage is that this energy source works all year round, unless the ground is frozen.

You can also convert your empty aluminum cans into an energy source. Run water through the ashes of your fireplace or barbecue, fill the empty cans with this potassium hydroxide solution, and place a live wire in the can. As long as the power wire does not touch the metal and the solution has not yet eaten through the can, you now have a functioning aluminum battery on which you can light a light. This solution is very popular in Nepal, among others.

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