An idea for Lent: take a critical look at your own energy consumption – and fast energy. We show you how you can easily change a few habits and use less energy and save money in the process to spend it on slots.
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, 40 days before Easter. This year on March 5. A good time to rethink habits and practise abstinence. Traditionally, we fast from chocolate, alcohol and screen time during this time. But why not focus on other habits for once and limit your own energy consumption?
The motto of energy fasting: every kilowatt hour of energy saved helps. The environment and your wallet. The idea is, of course, to firmly integrate the habits into everyday life after the fasting period. At this point, we want to focus on tips that you can implement quickly and easily.
Our first tip is therefore: take a close look at your everyday life. Where can you reduce your energy consumption? Which appliances can you do without? Which habits may have become ingrained? Where are you perhaps still too careless?
Our Tips
1: Off is not always the same as off
Is your monitor, TV or alarm clock always on standby? You’ve heard it a million times – but now it’s high time: check all electronic devices for their standby mode and switch them off consistently when you’re not using them, or pull the plug or switch off the power strip. Many electronic devices continue to consume electricity despite the off button. The electricity consumed in stand-by mode alone would require two medium-sized nuclear power plants in Germany.
2: A good night’s sleep for your smartphone
We often use our smartphones. Too often. It consumes electricity. You realize just how much when you have to charge it again in the evening. You can reduce power consumption by setting your smartphone to flight mode at night or, even better, switching it off completely (unless you need it as an alarm clock).
We also like to leave our laptop on all day – sometimes even overnight. After all, we need it “right away”. Therefore: If you don’t want to become the new Bitcoin king, turn off your computer at night.
3: Mobile phone: Deactivate background updates
Most apps have the “background updates” function activated automatically. It ensures that you are informed by push notification when you receive a new email or WhatsApp message, for example. As nice as it is, this function drains the battery – and therefore consumes power. And, if we’re honest, it sometimes stresses us out. So switch it off if you can!
We often read that we can save battery capacity if we always close the apps on our cell phone properly and correctly. However, this is not always the case. You can leave messenger, calendar, weather and news apps open with a clear conscience.
4: Put your cell phone habits to the test
Location services drain a lot of battery. So switch them off when you don’t need them.
Activate energy-saving mode. This reduces the brightness, slows down the speed – and saves power.
Switch off WLAN when you are on the move. Otherwise, your phone will constantly search for a network in your vicinity and use up an unnecessary amount of battery.
5: Unplug chargers
Another habit we can do without: Leaving chargers plugged in continuously. They can become secret power guzzlers – even when no cell phone is connected to them. So please unplug them from the socket.
