“Shave the Peak” to Save Energy and Keep Costs Down

Today isn’t just one of the hottest days of summer—it’s also a great day to save energy! Energy usage peaks on the hottest and coldest days of the year, and making a few changes on those days can make a huge difference. Mass Energy and Consumers Alliance explains:

• Peak days occur on the coldest days in winter and the hottest days in summer, when the grid operators have to turn on dirty and expensive power plants to meet skyrocketing demand.
• Just 1% of the year accounts for 8% of the electricity costs, and 10% of the year accounts for 40%.
• We don’t have enough renewable energy to green up the grid during peak events. So we need to Shave the Peak.
• You can help us Shave the Peak by signing up for peak alerts here and supporting our advocacy efforts as we push for a cleaner, more efficient grid.

If you’re curious, there’s a lot more detail at the link, but basically, it’s possible to predict when these peak days will occur, and if you get the alert, you can take some simple measures—such as postponing doing the laundry till later in the day. These are small, but if everyone does them, the impact is magnified.

Today is a peak day, so here are some things you can do right now:

• Turn off your air conditioning (or raise the thermostat 5 degrees)
• Stay cool by closing all shades and blinds, staying hydrated, or better yet, head to the beach
• Delay using big appliances like your washing machine, dishwasher, dryer, or TV until later at night, or the next day
• Turn off all unnecessary lights
• Shut off electronics you are not using, like computers and printers, and delay charging portable electronics until nighttime

Melrose takes steps to reduce its load on peak days—and it saves us money! ISO New England, which manages the power grid in this region, actually pays us to reduce our load on peak days such as today. Not only do we get performance payments and rebates, we also keep the cost of power down for the city. Our power rates are determined by the amount of electricity we use during the peak hours of the peak days—so the less we use on those days, the less we pay all year long. This reduces the city’s utility bills by tens of thousands of dollars per year.

So put down the power tools, turn off the computers, forget about the laundry and dishes, just head to the beach. It’s the green thing to do!