Get Price Report Texted to Your Phone

Follow Power Smart Pricing on twitter and set the service to text your phone. Each evening at 6pm you will receive a text message that tells you the low and high price for electricity for the following day. It might be advanced technology, but it's a simple way to lower your bills and help lower peak demand.

For example: Thu, Aug 06: Low @1.3 cents from 3am-4am, High@ 3.6 cents from 3pm-4pm.

Prices this summer have been really low so it can be easy to ignore prices. However you don't want to forget about the RTP Supplier Charge. During your billing period, the hour that has the highest overall system pick gets flagged and your usage during this hour is charged an extra amount. This charge is assessed to all customers (not just Power Smart Pricing accounts), but customers with hourly prices have the ability to lower the amount that they are charged by lowering their electricity usage during these hours.

A higher price for electricity is a good indication that a particular hour could be the system peak for your billing period, but there is not a direct correlation. System peaks generally occur between 2-5pm so the same things you are doing to lower your monthly bills will help you lower your RTP Supplier Charge.

Use twitter to keep up on which hours are most likely to carry the system peak. Again, its easy, and its information that will come straight to your pocket!!!

Follow us at www.twitter.com/powersmart. Sign up for an account if you don't already have one and indicate that you would like to receive our messages on your mobile phone.

All LEED Projects to Provide Performance Data

Buildings are responsible for around 70% of the energy use in the United States. They also provide opportunities for low cost energy efficiency improvements that can often be paid for in direct energy cost savings in a short period of time. The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) sponsors an award called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) that certifies excellence in building design and its performance.

CNT Energy's building has received the highest rating, Platinum, for the reconstruction we did in 2005. Since then we have monitored its performance to make sure it has achieved the goals that it was expected to, and track how our daily use in the building has effected the results. We have done this out of curiosity, and in our belief that performance monitoring and maintenance should be an active part of a certification for LEED buildings.

In the release of the new standards for LEED 2009, the USGBC has declared that certified buildings must report back their energy and water use performance for the first 5 years. This will not only make sure that building operators are achieving the results the building is modeled for, but it will also provide a lot of data so the USGBC can make the best changes to their certification that maximize the designs that have the best results.

A buzz word in the energy efficiency world is the "Snackwell Effect." Like the popular cookie a few years back, it has less calories but the consumers would end up eating more of them and the healthy snack lost its edge. Some families that change their lightbulbs to CFLs have a tendency to leave them on all day because they're energy efficient. Of course, at the end of the month the bill won't look any different. Actively monitoring performance will help the building owners get the most out of their LEED certified investment.

For more information check out this BuildingGreen.com article.

Potential of $1.2 Trillion in Energy Efficiency Savings

According to a report from McKinsey & Company the US could save $1.2 trillion by 2020 with an investment of $520 billion towards non-transportation energy efficiency. The reduction in energy use would prevent the output of 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions each year. This would be the equivalent of taking all of the passenger vehicles and light trucks off the roads.

A lot of people are fixated on new ways to generate electricity, but this study explores the arguably more reliable solution of new ways to lower the amount of energy we use. In many cases the investment is made in technology that we already have. Whether its weatherizing someone's home, or installing more efficient lighting and windows, the opportunities need expansion and not invention.

Energy efficiency must be treated as a fuel. If the same emphasis was placed on going after the hard to reach fuels throughout the world as it was to lower the energy required to run something, the existing resources we have already employed will become more powerful. If households required half the energy, the utility would require half the power plants (which end up getting paid for by the consumer) to match the demand.

"If we do nothing, we will waste $1.2 trillion of energy," McKinsey partner Ken Ostrowski said. "Over a decade, (the up-front investment) would be $50 billion a year, which is about five times what we invest today. That investment pays back--it's one of the few that generate environmental benefits and economic cost returns."

For more information check out CNET's Green Tech blog.
Read the entire report here (pdf).
Read the executive summary here (pdf).

PSP Updates Twitter Page

Power Smart Pricing has made some changes to their twitter page. Starting yesterday, each evening at 6pm we will tweet the highest and lowest price for the following day. Think of it just like a weather report giving you a generally sense of what to expect. It is also set up to tweet the price is going to rise above 13 cents as another way to receive your high price notification.

Here's a sample:

Thu, Jul 09: Low @ 1¢ from 2am - 3am, High @ 3.8¢ from 3pm - 4pm

Looks good. Easy to use.

Follow us at http://twitter.com/powersmart

Microsoft Joins the Home Energy Management Fray

Microsoft has recently unveiled its home energy management online tool called Microsoft Hohm. The tool allows the user to enter data about their home and their energy usage to determine personalized and effective energy savings tips. More information from unique users will enhance results as the site will be able to more effectively match usage patterns and one's home profile with energy savings.

Once you login with a Windows Live ID (an existing account will work) the layout is very easy to manage. Your home profile is very detailed and the site will update how far along you are in the process as you gather your information. If your utility is a partner of Microsoft Hohm, your monthly bills can be automatically uploaded into your site (neither Ameren nor ComEd have joined this partnersip). For everyone else there is a simple place that you can enter your billing information each month. All you need to provide is your billing start and end date and the amount of kwh (for electricity) and therms (for gas) that you have used during that period.

The more information you can provide, and the more people that provide it, the better the service will be for everyone. Considering Microsoft's outstanding legacy and history of getting people to use their products, this is a piece of software worth watching. If more utilities were to partner (as Microsoft is hoping and actively seeking), then the number of users would rise at a fast pace. Currently there are about four utilites that have signed on, mostly in the West Coast.

If you are the type of person that keeps your bills on hand, but never looks at them, then this site might be a good help. As you enter your data, you will be able to examine more detailed charts and graphs that will follow your usage. Given your home profile and your billing data, Microsoft Hohm will estimate what portion of your bills are going to what appliances and behaviors. It will provide the most cost effective solutions, and it will definitely help you save money.

The one negative is that it takes some effort from the consumer. You have to be engaged in energy saving to get the most out of the tool. To continue on the metaphor, they give you the hammer and the nail, but you still have to build the porch. The site is worth checking out. It's on par with some of the management tools out there. Despite not having the capacity to handle variable pricing like Power Smart Pricing, it can still be a service these customers.

Overall, good stuff.

Check out Microsoft Hohm.