Together We Can Make A Difference

A few months ago I wrote about a member that had sent me a lengthy letter explaining all the little things his family was doing to conserve energy around their household. The items weren’t huge lifestyle changers. A couple simple things he mentioned were drying clothes on a clothes line when possible rather using a dryer and installing motion detecting lights in their home that go off when no one is in a room. The member pointed out that if we could get everyone to do some of these simple things the amount of electrical demand and consumption across the entire system could be lowered by a great amount. That member was right. If everyone did just a couple small things the collective impact could be huge.

In the upcoming year Tipmont will be involved in some programs to help our members do just this. You will soon begin to see campaign material from the collective member REMC’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives brand. The material will talk about a campaign called “Together We Save.” This whole campaign is built on the simple premise that if everyone will make small changes in the way they use energy, the impact on our future could be immense. There is a saying that the cheapest kilowatt hour of energy is always going to be the one you don’t have to produce. A collective effort to conserve and use energy more efficiently lowers the overall production demand, which in turn means less fuel is purchased to produce power and less money is spent and passed on to the membership to purchase power. In the end, we all save together!

Another program that will roll out later this year is a concentrated energy efficiency effort. The program will include educational material, two levels of home energy performance audits, rebates to replace old washing machines with Energy Star models, rebates on air and ground source heat pumps, and a “bounty” on that old, second fridge many of us have in the garage!

Let’s face this head on. Like many other items we deem necessary in our day to day life, the cost to produce electricity and build out a delivery distribution system is not going to magically go down in the near future. Fuel cost and material cost, as well as other new costs associated with climate change and cap and trade on carbon emissions that are being considered in the legislature, will keep the prices rising. These costs will fluctuate at times but will most likely continue an overall upward trend throughout our lifetime. The immediate way to lower your personal energy costs is to find ways to use less.

Internally, we will continue to make efforts to lower the operating cost of the cooperative to the extent we can while still maintaining the integrity of the distribution system and financial health of the organization for the members. To make a real dent in the long run though, we need members to get involved. The best way you can pitch in right now is to just do a couple simple things around your home to lower your electrical usage.

If you would like some energy saving tips please stop by or call our Linden office and ask one of your member service representatives for the booklet, “101 Low Cost / No Cost Home Energy Savings Measures.” They’ll be happy to provide it to you! Also, don’t forget we have an energy advisor on staff. Jim Clark is always ready to answer your questions and offer suggestions to help provide direction in this area!