Rising electricity prices have led Danes to shift a larger part of their electricity consumption to the evening and night hours, when electricity prices are often lower. But even though this benefits the electricity bill, it is not necessarily good for fire safety.
This is according to the Danish Emergency Services - the association of municipal emergency response units.
- I can understand that people want to use electricity when it is cheap. But from a fire safety perspective, it is actually not very appropriate to use electrical appliances or charge batteries at night when they are not under supervision, says Head of Secretariat Bjarne Nigaard.
The risk is that a short circuit or a fault in the electrical appliance will not be discovered, and this could result in a fire, says Bjarne Nigaard.
Changed consumption pattern
The industry organization Green Power Denmark published figures earlier this autumn showing that Danes have changed their consumption pattern in light of rising electricity prices.
The figures showed that a larger part of electricity consumption has shifted to the late hours between 10 pm and 2 am. This moves part of the consumption from the time period between 5 pm and 8 pm, which electricity companies usually call "peak hours". This is the time when families typically cook, and when electricity prices are often highest.
At least once a week, the fire department is called out to a fire caused by a dryer.
- We cannot yet see a sharp increase in fires in electrical appliances at night in our statistics. But we can be nervous that if the trend continues, it will result in more fires, says Bjarne Nigaard.
If you want the washing machine or dryer to run at night to save electricity, you should, according to the head of the secretariat, protect yourself with a smoke alarm.
- Our strongest recommendation is that if you want to use electricity at night and do not have the opportunity to monitor what is currently running, get a smoke alarm. A working smoke alarm is the best and cheapest life insurance you can get. If something goes wrong, it will wake people up and you can get out in time, says Bjarne Nigaard.
Approximately 75 percent of Danish homes are equipped with one or more smoke alarms.
/ritzau/
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