Electricity Utility Savings

 As summer starts to wind down across most of the US, I for one am looking forward to not having my A/C on 24/7!  Not only am I not a fan (no pun intended!) of the dryness that the air creates, but I can't help but just feel like I hear coins falling out of my pocket when the A/C is on.  In our house, it is the 100% most expensive energy device we own.  Ugh.

But, since we live in Las Vegas, not having A/C is not an option.  Also not an option?  $300+ electric bills 5 months out of the year!  So, over the past three years, we've done *everything* we can to take advantage of savings -either thru our own efforts or thru the programs that our local energy supplier provides. We're now at an average monthly bill of $71.  This is down from $83 the previous year, and $111 the year before that.  Considering wattage rates have done nothing but go up and up, this means that we have genuinely-and aggressively-cut our electricity usage for the past several years-pretty good, all things considered.  

There are four (kinda five...) key things we've done to cut our usage.  Many of these things you can implement tomorrow-and you won't even know the difference.  That's my favorite game to play-one which saves $$ for no effort!  So, in order of savings, here are the things we've done to cut energy cost (or usage) in our home:

1.  Take advantage of any electrical discounting programs your energy provider offers:  In the Las Vegas area (heck, Nevada...), solar reigns supreme.  That's a good thing.  But, plenty of people (like yours truly) unfortunately live in an HOA where solar isn't an option.  That's not a good thing.  But, as a result, there is a program thru our energy company that we were accepted into a few years ago that allows us to still receive a discount on our energy costs-simply due to us *not* being able to use solar.   By being a part of this program for 3 years, we save an average of 7% of cost each month.  WIN!

Similar to this, thought we don't qualify, our energy company also offers discounted rates if you are a low income customer. 

Both of these programs offer savings at a fairly low rate of effort.  The only 'catch' is that there is but a brief window of opportunity each year to apply for the programs-and then you're in for 12 months before you have to reapply the following year.  So, if you miss the window, you have to wait.  But, you can't win the game if you don't play-so, check out your energy company's cost cutting programs and see what you might qualify for.  You may be pleasantly surprised!

2.  Own an electric vehicle (EV)?  Then, it's likely that your energy company offers a discount called 'TOU'-Time of Use.  Basically, once you prove that you have an EV (easy), your electric rates from midnight-8am (ish) will get a reduced rate, because it's likely that is the time of evening when you're charging.  That's a  nice savings in and of itself. 

The added bonus (#3):  Our energy company doesn't differentiate the rate savings between when we're charging-and when we're not.  So, ALL energy consumption from midnight to 8am is at a reduced rate!  Dishwasher?  The one hour cycle starts at 6.30am and finishes at 7.30am.  The Dryer?  Same thing.  And, because we're both warm sleepers, the one 'treat' we grant ourselves at night is to drop the AC to 74 from midnight to 7.20am.  Basically, between the hours of midnight and 8am, we go crazy with electrical consumption  But, the dishes and clothes drying are 11% cheaper at night than during the day.  And, except for now washing clothes at 9pm at night instead of 9am, there's really no difference to my day.  WIN!

4.  Get rid of the energy vampires: No, I'm not talking about Colin Robinson.  I'm talking about those appliances that are plugged in (when not in use) that continue to use a few pennies of energy just by the nature of being plugged in.  If we're not using the appliance, it's not plugged in.  OK.  This obviously doesn't apply to the built in oven, alarm clock, refrigerator...and those things that would be nuts to unplug.  But, this rule does apply to lamps, our TV (one of the biggest energy vampires in your house!), coffee maker, toaster oven...and other smaller appliances that don't need to be plugged in all the time to function properly when in use.  The only hassle from this is just the plugging and unplugging.  But, to save a $ or two a month for few daily seconds of effort?  WIN!

5.  I mentioned AC earlier, and you can't talk about AC (or HVAC) these days without talking about a programmable thermostat.  A few years ago, we really started leaning into the 'programmable' part of our thermostat and playing around with what is the lowest/highest (depending on the time of year) setting we could have during the day/night and still remain comfortable. So, I now know that 6am at night in July is 74 degrees...but 6pm at night is 78.  In the winter, we sleep at 60, and our highest in the day is 64.  Also, when we travel, we crank the AC to 80 in the summer (we do have a cat, so there's a limit...), but have it set to be at our preferred temperature by the time we arrive home from our travels.  And, our temperature settings during the week days are different than weekends (when we may sleep in a little bit later, or be out and about running errands).

Before moving to Vegas, I didn't understand why programmable thermostats were such a big deal.  Now, I get it.  It may take a few weeks of fiddling around with the temperatures during the various seasons to figure out what your optimal comfort level is-and then trying to push it one or two degrees more...but that's the effort.  Push a button and sit and see how you feel.  Easy peasy.  WIN!

Well, that's me.  Those are the things I did to drop my energy bill in two years from $111 to $71.  I'm always on the lookout for what else I can do to get the bill lower, so if you've got an energy savings tip, drop a comment below-I am all ears!