Electricity and gas prices are skyrocketing. It’s high time to save energy at home – and generate electricity yourself. A c’t special issue explains how it works.
Energy costs have already risen dramatically in recent months: households are currently paying almost twice as much for gas as in the previous year, and the price of electricity has climbed by around 17 percent, as the latest quarterly report from the energy association BDEW shows. By winter it will almost certainly be significantly more expensive.
Against this background, it seems more important than ever to save energy in the home. You can read how to do this in the c’t special issue Energy Tips. It provides concrete tips, tests and background knowledge on 114 pages. It’s not just about saving electricity and gas, but also about how to produce cheap electricity yourself – for example with a mini solar system on the balcony.
Photo gallery special issue c’t Energie-Tipps (5 photos)
The special issue “c’t Energie-Tipps” is about saving electricity and gas in the home and generating electricity with photovoltaic systems.
Reduce energy consumption…
The “Energy Saving” section first provides an overview of the largest blocks of costs and then gives concrete saving tips, especially for IT devices such as PCs, NAS, routers and consumer electronics. A comparison of 13 smart radiator thermostats shows how easy it is to configure the models and which smart home ecosystems they are suitable for. Another article explains how to use a geofence to automatically turn down the heating (and turn off appliances) when you leave your house or apartment.
Precise information about the energy consumption in one’s own household is also helpful when saving. The special issue explains how this is collected: With an inexpensive energy cost measuring device, you can unmask individual power guzzlers, for example older freezers or continuous network devices. Smart meters also help to find power guzzlers. And in many rented apartments, even the data from the heat cost allocator can be intercepted and read out by radio.
… and produce your own electricity
The “Generate your own electricity” section explains the current rules and remuneration for households that want to produce their own electricity. The individual articles reveal what needs to be considered with guerrilla PV systems on the balcony, classic roof solar systems and small wind turbines. The articles in the special issue come from c’t, Technology Review and voonze+ and have been updated.
c’t energy tips are available both on paper and in digital form. If you order the print edition for 14.90 euros in the voonze shop up to and including August 2nd, 2022, you do not pay any shipping costs. The digital edition is now available as a PDF for EUR 12.99 from the voonze shop; the special issue is also available in our Android and iOS apps as well as on Amazon.
You can also find the printed issue and the digital edition as a bundle in the voonze shop for EUR 19.90.
