Mel's Columbia, SC Blog

Greater Columbia, Chapin, Irmo, Lexington and Lake Murray.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Save Money on Your Energy Bill

Get Serious About Saving on Your Energy Bills!
Cut Your Utility Bills!
I did after receiving my January electric bill of $244.  We have a home of approximately 3,000 square feet served by Mid Carolina Electric Cooperative.  We do have a "Good Cents" rate that provides a monthly discount.  We were able to get this when we built our home about 8 years ago with certain energy efficiency upgrades.  First, I retrieved my past electric bills since January 2007 to build a spreadsheet to track past costs and future bills.  If you don't have these, your electric provider may be able to provide this information. 

Average Utility Bill Breakdown
For 2010, my average electric bill was $205.17.  This has increased about 7.9% per year over the previous 3 years.  The KWH usage increased only 1.6% per year over 3 years.   As consumers, we can't control the rates for electric KWH and/or gas rates, BUT, we can control how much energy we use and this impacts our energy bills!

Since receiving the January bill, I made some changes:  changing out more (almost all now) incandescent bulbs to CFLs; insulating interior outside wall electrical outlet and switch plate covers, and limiting or not using our basement heat pump system by using a space heater.   I also turn off my computer monitor at night and in the morning when leaving for work.  I even bought a Kill-A-Watt monitor to do some energy usage testing.

Since these changes, my two last electric bills have shown significant improvements:
Average February bill 2007- 2010: $183.75
February bill 2011: $175.00 (savings of 4.8%)

Average March bill 2007 - 2010: $150.00
March bill 2011: $87.00 (savings of 42.0%)

Posted by Unknown at 7:37 PM
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