Deciding when to use appliances can be a good way of saving money on your energy bills. This mostly relates to appliances such as the dishwasher, washing machine, and if you have a pool, then a pool pump. If you have solar panels, and you are on the old tariff of 60 cents a kilowatt, it is more advantageous for you to feed that energy into the grid rather then using it, as your energy retailer will pay you for that power.

However, if you are on a modest tariff, then it’s best for you to use your appliances with the energy coming from those solar panels.

How can we do that? Some modern appliances have delay start settings so that you can program when these appliances come on. If not then another way of doing this is by using a smart plug. This allows you to program the appliance to come on at various times during the day when the sun will be on the panels. You can do this from your phone or smart device and you can also see how much power you are using.

Alternatively, if you have a smart meter with a Time of Use Tariff that changes according to the time of day, you can decide to run appliances like dishwasher, washing machine and pool pump at night. That will use the off-peak tariff and will be cheaper to run.