Does your local utility practice time-variant pricing? If you don’t know the answer, or you don’t know what the term means, you’d be wise to read on and learn. It could mean big savings for you.
What Is Time-Variant Pricing?
Utilities nationwide are increasingly adopting a practice in which energy is priced differently, according to demand and time of day. For instance, peak demand in summer is generally when people start arriving home after work or school in the hottest part of the day and turn the thermostat down. With more demand, the cost of producing energy to meet the demand goes up, and that increase is passed along to the customer.
While most of your utility expenses likely come from cooling or heating your home, and while it’s unlikely you can totally cut back your need for energy in the hottest part of the day, there are some tactics you can adopt that will help you make time-variant pricing work for you.
Energy-Saving Strategy
You can find out if your utility uses time-variant pricing by looking on your energy bill, or going to the utility’s website. Find out when charges for electricity go down in your service area.To save money on energy in the summer, try setting your thermostat a few degrees higher when energy costs more. Then, if your home is well insulated, you can turn the thermostat down a few degrees at night to cool things off; it’s possible the house will stay relatively cool a good part of the next day so that the air conditioner turns on minimally. Obviously, when cold weather rolls around, you can turn the thermostat up a few degrees when charges for heating go down.
Some other things you can do to augment your energy savings:
Install energy-efficient appliances; in summer, use them after the heat of the day, when energy prices go down.
Fix air leaks in your home. Install more insulation as needed.
To learn more about time-variant pricing and energy savings, call Ace Hardware Home Services. You can also schedule maintenance, repairs and new equipment installations.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Dayton, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).
