With many people working and learning from home, things like our computers, chargers, lights that are typically off while you’re not at home are now sucking up way more energy than normal. But there are a few things you can do to keep your bills down and save energy.
"We're being very conscious about turning off lights when we can you know I’m running the dishwasher at night trying to do anything I can to keep it as low as possible knowing that it would probably go up as long."
Patti Albee of West Hartford now has two public school students learning remotely, one college student finishing up their academic year back home and her husband working from home full time. So they’re making a very conscious effort to keep their electric bill down.
"The things we're trying to not use as much are the dryer which takes up a lot so I’m hanging clothes up as much as possible,” explains Albee. “The oven… we're being smart about baking and cooking all of the things at once, we're grilling a lot so we're using gas vs the electric from inside so hopefully it will make a difference in the long run. We'll have to see."
Eversource is also making an effort to help customers during this unprecedented time.
"What we really feel is important is more approaching it from a helpfulness perspective,” explains Enoch Lenge, the energy efficiency supervisor for Eversource. “And so in the next week you'll see promotions from a helpfulness standpoint where we'll be running a campaign and promoting energy efficiency and ways to save and unique product offers to our customers."
Additional steps Eversource is taking to help customers include eliminating shut off of electric and natural gas accounts, creating custom payment plans depending on your current situation, and offering products such as LED light bulbs, WiFi thermostats and air purifiers....items that can be delivered right to your home and that you can install yourself.
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A few things you can do at home to conserve energy include switching to LED light bulbs and turning the lights off when you’re not in the room, utilizing smart power strips that detect when devices are in standby mode and decrease or turn off the power, and using an energy cost calculator that you can find online to find out what is using the most energy in your home.
