This Wednesday is Energy Efficiency Day, and as you probably know, CUB is a big believer in efficiency.
Energy efficiency isn’t about sacrifice or a drop in productivity. It’s the practice of using less energy to perform the same tasks you normally do, such as doing the laundry or charging your electronics. Essentially, it’s all about eliminating energy waste. It’s good for your bills, it’s better for the environment, easier on the grid, and your neighbors can benefit from your efforts, too!
Good For Your Bills
By reducing your electricity consumption, you’ll automatically save money. Makes sense, right? You turn off lights when you leave the room. You unplug electronics when they are done charging or when you’re done using them. You retire your ancient refrigerator for a new, more efficient model. You’re using fewer kilowatt-hours of energy, and your behavior will be reflected on your bill!
Pro tip: Consider a Home Energy Assessment.
And to continue saving, pair your energy efficiency practices with programs like Hourly Pricing, Peak Time Savings, or Time-of-Day. These programs incentivize you to shift your electricity away from peak-usage times to periods of the day when electricity demand and prices are lower. That means you can cut your bills even more!
Good For the Environment
Energy efficiency not only means reducing your bill, but helping to reduce electricity demand, and that’s good for the environment.
If demand is down, power plants don’t have to work so hard. That includes dirty, fossil fuel “peaker” plants that come online to help meet extra demand, even if it’s only for a few hours a year.
By reducing your usage overall and being especially conscious of your usage during “peak” times, you’re helping to lower demand and reduce our reliance on polluting peaker plants.
Easier on the Grid
By reducing your usage and shifting your heavy usage to off-peak times (like late at night or early in the morning), your energy efficiency efforts help reduce stress on the electrical grid. A less stressed-out, more reliable grid leads to fewer power outages, which is good news for everyone.
Good for Your Neighbors
When you practice energy efficiency, you’re helping to bring everyone’s bills down, too!
A shrinking demand lowers the cost of electricity in wholesale markets, too, and that can mean lower future rates for everyone. Lower demand also lowers the capacity charge, a charge that’s tucked away on your electric bill.
We pay for capacity, which is a fancy way of saying that we’re paying extra to have those polluting peaker plants on standby in case our usage outpaces supply. But if we cut the need for capacity by shrinking demand, our capacity charges should shrink across the board, too.
For more information on energy efficiency, visit the electric page on our website. There, you can find fact sheets about energy efficiency and other money-saving programs for consumers.
