© BMWK

“Mirror, mirror on the wall...” The modern version works something like the one in Grimms’ Fairy Tales, because the “electricity mirror” doesn’t hide the facts and tells the truth, warts and all. To do this, the independent online portal (in German only) of co2online, a consultancy company, compares the consumption of 360,000 households of varying sizes across Germany and thus provides the consumption figures for comparable households. The data come from the national buildings database of co2online (in German only) and mirror the electricity consumption over the last two years.

“Strom-Check” online calculator provides comparative figures and hints on how to save electricity

According to the “electricity mirror”, 85% of households in Germany can save energy costs – on average up to €240 a year in a two-person household. To compare your own electricity consumption via the StromCheck (in German only) online calculator, you need your latest electricity bill. The data are transmitted securely and anonymously.

How much can be saved by all of Germany’s households?

Together, households in Germany can save 31.6 terawatt-hours of electricity a year. That roughly equates to the amount of electricity generated by all of Germany’s nuclear power plants last year. If full use were made of the potential savings, €12.7 billion could be cut from the electricity bill. At the same time, households could avoid 15 million tonnes of carbon emissions by rigorously saving electricity.

But an environmentally friendly electricity supply is only part of the energy transition: there is also a great deal of potential to save energy for heating and hot water. co2online’s “heating mirror” shows you where you can save money at home. It provides up-to-date nation-wide comparative figures on heating costs and the consumption of energy for heating.