If you’re a Powershop customer, chances are you joined us to take control of your power, right? Along with all of our power specials, we also provide you with a bunch of tools to help you be in the know about how much power you’re using and when you’re using it. Watch this Power Hacks video to find out more, or read the transcript below. 

“There’s nothing more scary than getting a bill at the end of the month and not knowing – or understanding – why it’s so high and how you’ve used so much power. But that’s where we come in.

If you’re a Powershop customer, chances are you joined us to take control of your power. But, did you know, that as well as offering discounted power though our Powerpacks, we also provide you with a bunch of tools to help you better understand your power usage?

Hi I’m Damian and this is how you can track your power usage.

Via our desktop site or mobile app, you have the ability to track your power usage, down to the hour, so you can stay in control of how much power you’re using and when you’re using it.

So, how do you get all this info?

If you’re on our desktop site, head to the usage tab and then to the usage patterns tab.

The heat map display helps you see when you use the most power over a period of 4 weeks, 12 weeks or a year.

Each coloured square of the chart is one half hour period of one day. A brighter square is a higher usage half hour and a darker square is lower usage.

This graph can also help you understand where you may be able to become more energy efficient; saving you power and money.

On the same page, you can also see the time of day you usually use the most power, the specific day you used the most power during your selected time frame and the day and time your peak usage was.

If you’re on our mobile app, you’ll still be able to view all of this data, but it will just look a little different.

From the Balance page, navigate to the ‘Daily Usage’ screen and you’ll be able to see an hour-by-hour usage graph underneath your daily breakdown in a bar chart. To see a different day, simply select this above, and the hour by hour graph will automatically update. If you want to compare the hour-by-hour info for certain days, we recommend using the desktop site instead.

This information will automatically show up if you have a smart meter, but if you don’t, you can still access some information by manually entering your meter reads.

We get a verified meter read every 1 – 2 months, but if you want to see your daily usage, you’ll need to enter this information each day by heading to ‘Read meter’ under the  ‘My property’ tab. We recommend doing this at the same time each day, if possible. Don’t forget to use our torch function if you’re having trouble seeing the numbers.

So, now that you know how much power you’re using and when you’re using it, you’re more prepared to find savvy ways of cutting down your power usage.

Like unplugging your phone or laptop charger when it’s not in use, as they still suck up power when you’re devices aren’t attached.

Or switching your hot water washed for cold. 90% of a washing machine’s energy cost is spent heating the water, so switch to cold and save.

Understanding your power usage, just one of the ways Powershop helps put the power back in your hands.”