Beat the Peak

Beat the PeakIf you look around your home, you like­ly have more devices and equip­ment that require elec­tric­i­ty than ever before. Our con­nect­ed lives are increas­ing­ly depen­dent on more elec­tric­i­ty to func­tion. At the same time, as demand for elec­tric­i­ty ris­es, Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive must deliv­er an unin­ter­rupt­ed 24/7 pow­er supply––regardless of mar­ket con­di­tions or oth­er cir­cum­stances.

As you would expect based on your family’s habits, elec­tric­i­ty use fluc­tu­ates through­out the day based on con­sumer demand. CEC must be able to pro­vide enough elec­tric­i­ty to meet the ener­gy needs of all mem­bers dur­ing times of high­est ener­gy use or “peak hours.” These peak times are typ­i­cal­ly in the morn­ing as peo­ple start their day and in the evening as peo­ple return to their homes.

What you may not know is that elec­tric util­i­ties includ­ing CEC typ­i­cal­ly pay more for electricity––either from a pow­er plant or from anoth­er util­i­ty with excess power––during those morn­ing and evening “ener­gy rush hours.” In addi­tion, the demand for elec­tric­i­ty is even high­er when it’s espe­cial­ly cold out­side, when heat­ing sys­tems must run longer to warm our homes.

If the “peak times” con­cept is a bit puz­zling, here’s an easy way to think about it, and it’s sim­i­lar to a major con­cert. We know costs go up when there is strong demand for tick­ets (or elec­tric­i­ty), and both are sub­ject to the basic eco­nom­ic laws of sup­ply and demand. When a lot of peo­ple want the same thing, it’s more expen­sive. When they don’t, it’s cheap­er–– like a bar­gain mati­nee or an “ear­ly bird” spe­cial at a restau­rant.

Dur­ing peak peri­ods when the cost to pro­duce and pur­chase pow­er is high­er, we encour­age you to take sim­ple steps to save ener­gy, such as turn­ing your ther­mo­stat down a few notch­es, turn­ing off unnec­es­sary lights and wait­ing to use large appli­ances dur­ing off-peak times.

You can also save ener­gy by plug­ging elec­tron­ics and equip­ment such as com­put­ers, print­ers and TVs into a pow­er strip, then turn it off at the switch dur­ing peak hours. If you have a pro­gram­ma­ble ther­mo­stat, adjust the set­tings to sync up with off-peak rate peri­ods. When we all work togeth­er to reduce ener­gy use dur­ing peri­ods of high elec­tric­i­ty demand, we can relieve pres­sure on the grid and save a lit­tle mon­ey along the way.

Anoth­er ben­e­fit of this time-of-use approach to elec­tric­i­ty use allows greater con­trol over your bill. Reduc­ing the peak impacts the pow­er-sup­ply cost to every co-op mem­ber. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly notice­able as ener­gy costs have risen across the U.S. Col­lec­tive­ly, every­one con­serv­ing ener­gy and mak­ing small changes can tru­ly make a dif­fer­ence.

Remem­ber, tak­ing sim­ple steps to save ener­gy through­out the day and shift­ing ener­gy inten­sive chores to off-peak hours is a smart choice for you and our com­mu­ni­ty. Explore our Sav­ings Cen­ter to learn more about peak ener­gy and how to save.

– Arti­cle by Anne Prince for NRE­CA’s Straight Talk