Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
HOUSTON -- The high temperature on Monday may not have hit the century mark, but plenty of residents complain they are seeing triple digits on their electric bills.
The surging heat and the price surge on the bills that come with the summer are hitting residents like Kim Walker particularly hard.
•Change standard light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs. They don't generate heat and can help lower your electricity costs by up to 70 percent.
•Keep the sun out by covering windows and closing blinds.
•Try to keep your temperature setting at 78 degrees.
•Turn off your ceiling fans when your not home.
As a stay-at-home mom, Walker keeps her house clean and cool. But the heat is making it harder to keep the home as cool as she would like.
“And it’s not officially summer yet,” said Walker. “We do everything we can to keep (the bill) low.”
But in the past two months, her electric bill has doubled. Her husband blames the hike on the variable rate charged by their electric company.
“Once we get off the fixed rate it goes month-to-month and it really depends on the price of energy that particular month,” said Mike Walker.
Just like we all pay for gasoline by the gallon, we pay for electricity by the kilowatt. The higher the rate, the more you pay.
The Walkers’ rate jumped from 13 cents per kilowatt in April to 16 cents per kilowatt this month.
“I think it’s really in tune with (the) movement of energy prices, but wow, it makes a big difference in the electric bill,” said Mr. Walker.
The key to getting a lower rate is to find an electric plan that offers a fixed rate. But that takes some shopping around.
“Customers who are on month-to-month products are going to be seeing higher energy prices this summer,” said Pat Hammond, a Reliant Energy spokesman. “One of the options they have is to sign up for a long-term product.”
And almost all of the state’s retail electric providers offer long-term, fixed-rate plans.
So, the Walkers are shopping for energy so they don’t pay more than they have to during a long, hot and expensive summer.
