Electricity going to waste
This past week I finally managed to take a holiday at the coast. At home I have adopted many energy saving practices in an effort to 'do my bit' towards cutting down on electricity and water use and was shocked by how much of both are wasted on holiday apartments.
Our beachfront apartment was lovely to behold - in the daytime and at night, so much in fact that it was almost impossible to sleep without closing the curtains to block out the night time illumination. While homeowners across the country are taking steps to cut down on energy usage, holiday apartments - whether full or almost empty - are not.
June is not a peak period for holiday makers, it's quiet and there is plenty of accommodation to be found. So why are holiday apartment complexes lit up like Christmas trees? Upon further investigation I also noted that hardly any (or those that I managed to check on) were even using energy efficient lighting options. Passages, hallways, staircases, and even utility rooms are all lit up 24 hours around the clock. While larger areas do make use of fluorescent lighting, smaller areas in these developments still use incandescent globes.
Holiday apartment buildings with less than 10% occupancy light up the night and consume more energy that 20 or more conventional homes. Surely a policy can be adopted by owners or shareholders to take steps to cut back or use energy efficient alternatives. It's not only the average homeowner that should be taking steps to conserve, but everyone on this earth.
Around the country hotels, casinos and vacant office buildings light up the night sky - wasting valuable resources. It's about time that regulations were put in place to control and monitor these vast amounts of energy wastage and reduce the call for power outages and energy price hikes.
