It’s not likely that you spend hours obsessing over what time of day you do laundry, or whether you leave your computer plugged in when you leave the house. But there are a couple of good reasons why you should be thinking about things like these. One reason is simply the fact that how much electricity you use — and when you use it — can affect your electric bill significantly. Another reason is that the electricity grid we all rely on is facing some serious challenges these days — and July and August are times of peak energy demand.

What can you do to save money, while helping to reduce stress on the grid? We thought you’d never ask.

What’s going on with the power grid these days?

Fair question. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) operates the electric transmission system (aka “the grid”) in 15 U.S. states (including many in the Midwest) plus the Canadian province of Manitoba. In February, MISO released a RELIABILITY IMPERATIVE report, warning that the grid is facing urgent and complex reliability challenges, which include the following:

• Conventional power resources are being retired and newer weather-dependent resources don’t offer the same reliability. Emerging technologies may someday offer solutions, but are not yet viable on a mass scale.
• Extreme weather events have become more frequent and severe, impacting power generation and transmission.
• Many approved new generation projects are not yet in service, because of supply chain and permit issues.
• A manufacturing resurgence, coupled with data center energy consumption and other trends, has caused load additions to the MISO grid.

These and other challenges have prompted MISO to raise an alarm. The organization is now asking its members to work together to (1.) accelerate the addition of new reliability attributes (while moderating the retirement of conventional resources), (2.) maintain transition resources as reliability “insurance” until promising new technologies become viable at grid scale, and (3.) identify areas of risk in which electricity providers, states, and MISO can coordinate.

As MISO and its partners work to avoid energy disruptions, there are ways in which individuals like us can also help — by reducing the stress we place on the power grid (and quite possibly, lowering our own utility bills in the process). 

Off-peak power use is on trend.

In a standard electricity plan, you pay the same rate for electricity no matter when you use it. But if you have a time-of-use (TOU) plan, the rate you pay for your electricity depends on the time when energy is used. In WVPA’s wholesale rate structure, power used between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays — excluding weekends and holidays observed by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) — is billed on peak. That’s when electricity demand is typically highest. Power consumed between 8 and 11 p.m., or between 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. is considered “off peak” and power consumed between 11 p.m and 5 a.m. is termed “super off peak.”

Now, we’re not suggesting that everybody needs to start staggering out of bed at 2 a.m. to run their dishwashers. However, it could be a relatively easy matter to wait until off-peak hours at 8 p.m. (or on the weekend, for that matter) to run your large appliances. Even if you’re not on a TOU plan, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re sparing the power grid the strain of peak-time use.

Consider getting a programmable thermostat.

On a hot summer day — and we’ve had a few of those lately — cranking up the A/C can be a strong temptation. However, cooling a home is one of the most significant contributors to your power bill (heating a home is another, but we’ll save that topic for a later blog post). If you buy a programmable thermostat, you can program the temperature in your home to go up or down automatically — with lower settings at off-peak hours. You can learn more about this from our WI-FI THERMOSTAT PROGRAM.

There are, of course, many other things you can do to keep your home’s temperature lower — such as closing blinds and drapes to block the sun, or taking a cold shower to cool yourself down. Check out this handy list of HEAT-BEATING HOUSEHOLD TIPS we put together a few years back.

Before you pull out of the driveway, pull the plug on your electricity.

Why use electricity, especially during peak hours, if no one is around? Before you leave your home, turn off the lights — and consider unplugging certain electronics as well. Items like televisions, printers, video game consoles, microwave ovens, and phone chargers use a lot of electricity when they’re plugged in, even when they’re not in use. This drain is called VAMPIRE POWER (insert menacing Bela Lugosi chuckle here) and helping to reduce its use could benefit both your wallet and the power grid.

You’re not just helping yourself. You’re helping us all.

Isn’t it great when saving money for yourself also benefits the community around us? While MISO and others work to strengthen our power grid, we can all do our part to help lighten this summer’s demand for electricity — in ways that are not just financially smart, but also civically responsible. To learn more, get in touch with YOUR LOCAL CO-OP ENERGY ADVISOR.