>I also noticed that people don't leave lights or the TV on over there they way they do there.

Specially the porch lights.

BTW, the most effective saving (singular!) of power I ever had was, apart from good insulation of the whole house, is the switch to a tankless water heater. Using electricity to heat up 50l of water (13 gal... not to mention the 40-60 gal monsters you got over there) used to consume about two to three times as much.