• The humidity levels in your home can make it feel warmer and cooler, depending on the current weather patterns. This extra layer of complexity to your home’s temperature control can make it more difficult to keep your rooms at comfortable temperatures—and it can cause you to waste a lot of extra money on energy costs! The best way to keep the humidity of your home’s air in check is to invest in a humidifier and a dehumidifier. These devices can help you regulate the amount of moisture in the air and keep those energy costs down.

• Your water heater temperature might be costing you extra money as well. Most water heaters come with their temperature set to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. However, most households only require them to be set to 120 degrees. 120 degrees is a good temperature to aim for because it will greatly reduce the stress on your water heater while still keeping your water warm enough to kill legionellae bacteria—that said, if this is a major concern for your family, just opt for the peace of mind that a higher temperature affords. Not only will this reduce your risk of being scalded by water that is too hot, but it will also save you energy!

• Natural light is another factor that can play a big part in your home’s energy consumption. An abundance of natural light, or a lack thereof, can cause your home to feel cooler or warmer than you might like. What’s more, a lack of natural light in your home can trick you into turning on more lights and sucking up more electricity. Investing in blinds and shades is a good way to control natural light!

• Here’s another thing that might surprise you: Did you know that ceiling fans can be used during the summer and the winter? It’s true! Fans have different settings that suck up warm air during the summer and push warm air towards the ground during the winter.

• Lastly, you can take advantage of off-peak hours to get a great deal on cheap electricity. Off-peak hours are times during which the energy grid is not under a lot of stress, generally in the evening and late at night. Learn more about the benefits of using off-peak electricity hours!

Looking for more ways to save energy around your home? Check out our Energy Saving Ideas page for some energy saving inspirations!

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While there certainly is a case to be made for the benefits of underground power lines, the huge cost and the potential problems with undergrounding have kept the U.S. from fully embracing this type of power grid.

Why We Want Buried Power Lines

The advantages of undergrounding our power structure are obvious: lines would be less subject to damage from severe weather and other accidents both natural and man-made. There are also several smaller benefits, such as the raw amount of land that would be freed for other uses and a decreased risk of danger to wildlife caused by power lines.

Since it’s well known that the U.S. power grid could certainly use an upgrade, it’s only natural to ask why we shouldn’t just bite the bullet and invest fully in undergrounding.

Why We Don’t Have Them

The main reason why undergrounding hasn’t been fully adopted in the U.S. is the overwhelmingly high cost of installing underground power lines. Estimates place the cost of undergrounding power lines at roughly $750 per foot, compared with $70 per foot to install power lines the way we do today. At over ten times the cost, this would become expensive very quickly.

Take North Carolina, for example. In 2002, the state looked into undergrounding for their three major power companies after a particularly bad power outage that left 2 million people losing power. After it was priced out, North Carolina found that their project would cost $41 billion (six times the net value of those three companies’ distribution assets) and would require 25 years to complete!

“Buried power lines are protected from the wind ice, and tree damage that are common causes of outages, and so suffer fewer weather or vegetation-related outages,” their report concluded. “But buried lines are more vulnerable to flooding and can still fail due to equipment issues or lightning.”

Cost aside, there are several logistical problems that have kept undergrounding from emerging in the U.S. In addition to power lines, new transformers and switches would have to be built and buried to get power to our nation’s homes.

There is also the problem that being underground creates for power line maintenance. If there is a power outage in underground power lines, technicians will need to bring in earth-moving equipment to get to the lines and solve the problem. This is much more troublesome than climbing a pole—and a downright challenge in much of the country during the winter.

As if that weren’t enough, underground power lines are still vulnerable to the elements in some ways, notably flooding and earthquakes. This vulnerability was exposed during the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, when several hundred kilometers of underground power lines were damaged, compared to only a few kilometers of overhead lines.

Ultimately, the prohibitively high cost of undergrounding alone has kept the technique from widely spreading in the U.S. Unless big changes are made, undergrounding is just an impractical concept on a large scale.

Check out the rest of our Bright Insights blog to learn more about energy efficiency and the benefits of renewable energy!

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Luckily, there are a few easy ways to determine which of your appliances is the most energy hungry!

One option is tracking how much you use your appliances and then comparing that data with your energy bill to see any patterns. You can manually calculate how much energy each of your appliances uses by plugging information about your appliances into an equation—we wrote a past blog about this if you’re interested!

However, if you don’t have the time to do a lot of math, you can follow some common rules of thumb to determine your home’s priciest appliances. Keep in mind, however, that not having specifics will only get you so far.

Costly Appliances

According to a study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, these are the appliances in your home that will consume the most energy in a given year, ranked in order.

1. HVAC system
2. Air conditioner
3. Water heater
4. Lighting fixtures
5. Washer and dryer
6. Refrigerator
7. Electric Oven
8. TV/DVD/VCR
9. Dishwasher
10. Computer (desktop or laptop)

Typical Costs to Run Appliances

To actually see some of this information in action, check out the information below that describes the average cost per hour to run several common appliances, assuming a cost of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour.

• Heat pump or central air: $1.50
• Dryer or water heater: $0.40
• Electric stove burner: $0.10
• Refrigerator: $0.10
• Computer and monitor: $0.04

A big takeaway from these findings: One of the most effective ways to save a lot of money at home is to make changes that allow you to take some stress off of your HVAC system and air conditioner!

Looking for some further reading? Check out the rest of our Bright Insights blog to learn more about residential energy efficiency!

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Extreme cold increases demand on oil

Polar vortex, or even just prolonged chilly winter weather, can cause a peak of demand on oil and other services. This increase in demand comes from the simple fact that many families are staying home and heating their homes.

This is when the laws of supply and demand rear their ugly heads. A drastically increased demand on these resources increases their cost. However, if you are purchasing fixed-rate electricity, like you can with Star Energy Partners, then you won’t have to worry!

Slow oil production

Cold temperatures make extracting oil from the ground a burden. Refineries are also slowed down due to cold weather, and these two aspects together can cause the actual production of oil during winter months to slow down. This can become a particularly troublesome problem if an oil shortage occurs and there is high demand for more oil.

Power outages

One side effect of inclement weather is the inevitable car accidents, which can lead to downed power lines and power outages. Power outages during the winter can exacerbate other problems, like rising energy prices and scarcity of propane and other fuels that are used for heating. It’s always important to drive safely, but that’s especially true in the winter!

Unseasonably warm temperatures

You would imagine that cold weather would be the only culprit, but unseasonably warm weather can also cause problems. Unusual seasonable temperatures that occur during an El Niño (just like this year) can hurt the energy industry by significantly reducing the amount of electricity many of us use during that. This makes sense, as warmer temperatures decrease the need to manually heat one’s home. In turn, this decreased usage can cut into energy companies’ revenue and potentially drive up prices for consumers.

Click here to learn how you can increase your home’s energy efficiency during the winter!

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Washington is the clear winner, and Delaware is the clear loser of this list, coming in at first and last, respectively. Here is the complete top 10 list in order, for measuring amount of renewable energy production:

1. Washington
2. California
3. Oregon
4. New York
5. Alabama
6. Georgia
7. Tennessee
8. North Carolina
9. Iowa
10. Florida

Naturally, we were curious about where the Star Energy Partners service territories showed up on this list, and we were not disappointed! While none of them were in the top 10 in production, they still performed pretty well:

• Illinois–16^th
• Pennsylvania–17^th
• Ohio–26^th
• New Jersey–37^th

Fortunately, there is good news for these states that are lower on the list. Ohio, for instance, ranks first in the number of facilities manufacturing wind components and second for solar equipment, as of 2013. What’s more, Ohio ranked in the top 10 when measuring the most improved renewable energy states since 1990 in terms of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

New Jersey is also an up and coming renewable energy market. The state recently inked a plan to bring offshore wind farms to the Jersey Shore. This will certainly give their score a nice shot in the arm for next time!

Renewable energy is certainly on the rise. Most forms of renewable energy are as cheap as they have ever been. Add to that the Pope’s public advocacy for environmental stewardship and the EPA’s toughened regulations through the Clean Power Plan, and the future of energy is looking bright.

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Everyone loves that renewable energy is great for the environment! So why doesn’t everyone use it already? Some people just don’t believe that renewable energy is a reliable long-term option. Will renewable energy be able to affordably lead us into a bright new future?

“Yes” was the consensus reached on a recent GreenBiz webcast according to reporters Sureya Melkonian and Barbara Grady. An article on GreenBiz notes they talked about long-term sustainability and how renewable energy can prepare us for a clean, green future.

“Renewable energy can reduce your energy costs—full-stop,” said Blaine Collison, managing director of Altenex, succinctly summarizing the thoughts of a great deal of the energy industry.

The sticking point here is economics. The benefits of renewable energy for the environment are widely known, but many people still question whether or not renewable energy is truly affordable.

On the side of renewable energy, another consensus was reached during the webcast: “The business case is straightforward: volatility in the price of fossil fuels represents nothing but massive, massive risk exposure for anyone who is responsible for an operational portfolio.”

It turns out that there are certain aspects of sustainability that run counter to continued fossil fuel use, especially when viewed through the eyes of an investor. The unpredictability of fossil fuel costs in the coming years means they may not be a good long-term investment—especially when you consider that it’s possible we’ll run out of fossil fuels altogether!

In comparison, renewable energy is quite predictable. Given the large amounts of data and experience we have with weather forecasting, we can accurately predict how much energy can be obtained through renewable energy sources. This kind of control makes renewable energy a safe and predictable investment: you know what you’re going to get!

Want to learn more about renewable energy and green energy products? Learn about the green products that we offer at our Green Energy page!

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According to a tech article from Forbes, cheap battery storage technology will prove as disruptive to the energy industry as the cellphone has been in telecommunications.

“I would bet that there’s not a single person in this entire audience who does not have a cellphone in their pocket,” said Susan Kennedy, CEO of Advanced Microgrid Solutions during the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas. ”If you think about it, the entire grid from the ground up was designed around the concept that energy cannot be stored. And so the whole grid is going to change dramatically because of one thing: battery storage.”

This is very important to note. The nation’s power grid is designed to always be connected, a technological philosophy that seems antiquated when compared to the rest of today’s technology. With battery storage in most of our electronic devices, and cloud and Wi-Fi technology to wirelessly connect us, being physically connected by our power grid can’t last forever. In fact, you can go to your local hardware store and find generators that use a battery. The technology is readily available, and experts think we are right on the verge of a big shift.

Think about the advantages: you wouldn’t have to worry nearly as much about power outages because you could have a significant battery backup to wait them out. One case study example of the possibilities is the home of Josh and Susan Fried. The Frieds put $50,000 worth of investment into battery and other energy technology to allow them to stockpile clean energy. The Frieds home can run off the energy grid (using only energy they have produced themselves) for at least three days without too much worry.

The way that the winds are blowing, it appears that the energy industry is going to experience some big changes in the relative near future. With battery technology ripe for disruption and exciting change in the energy industry, some have even speculated that the next home you own might even be battery powered!

Looking to learn more about energy efficiency, or to get updates on the latest energy industry news? Check out the rest of our Bright Insights blog!

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Energy vampires can put stress on your energy bills by passively sucking away at your home’s energy usage, wasting a good deal of electricity and potentially costing your household a lot of money on your energy bills. In fact, one study found that Americans collectively waste $19 billion on energy consumed by these “vampire” devices every year—that’s roughly $60 for every person in the country!

What is an energy vampire?

But what exactly is an energy vampire? Energy vampires are appliances and other electronic devices that draw power from outlets while plugged in even if they aren’t turned on. Even energy appliances can be energy vampires. Unplugging these appliances or using a power strip can prevent this and lower your electric bill.

Here are some examples of devices that are energy vampires:

• Cell phone and laptop chargers
• TVs, game consoles, desktop computers, appliances, things that are always plugged in
• Cable boxes
• DVR, DVD players
• Devices that turn on instantly with a remote control
• Devices with standby light or clock

How do you stop energy vampires?

Stakes and garlic won’t work on these vampires. However, there are still several ways that you can save yourself from wasting energy to these greedy devices. One way is to simply unplug them when they are not in use. While this might seem like a lot of work (you probably don’t want to plug your TV in every single time before you use it), consider purchasing a surge protector that you can plug all of your devices into. This way, instead of having to plug in individual devices every time you want to use them, you can simply turn your surge protector off when you leave the room.

Another effective method is to curb idle time on some of your devices by shutting them down completely instead of putting them to sleep. While it is nice to not have to wait for your computer to boot up every morning, it will save you energy by not running your computer throughout the entire night.

If you are looking to increase energy efficiency in general, you might target these energy-sucking appliances and devices for upgrades to more energy efficient models.

One trick you can use to cut down on this idle energy consumption is charging your phone from your computer battery. If you have a USB adapter on your phone charger, try charging your phone from your laptop battery by plugging it into your laptop when it isn’t plugged into the wall. You can also look to do a good deal of your portable device charging (laptop, phone charging, etc.) in places other than your home where you don’t have to pay for electricity. Some examples are at work, or out at a coffee shop or restaurant.

With these tricks of the trade, you won’t have to fear energy vampires any longer!

Want to invest in a surge protector to avoid energy vampires? Purchase one through our Star Energy Rewards app to receive cashback on your purchase! Download the app on iOS or Android to learn more!

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When it comes to energy efficiency, information is key. To begin saving energy in your home, you’ll need to have a plan of attack for lowering those energy prices—and that means relevant data. But don’t worry: you don’t need to collect all that data by hand! These apps can give you information about how much energy you use, where you can purchase the best energy, and much more—plus most of them are free to download!

JouleBug

JouleBug makes energy efficiency fun by gamifying the process. The app has hundreds of unique achievements to discover and compare with your friends, all of which are related to increasing the energy efficiency in your home. JouleBug is free to download and is available on iOS and Android.

Power Cost Calculator

Power Cost Calculator helps determine how much energy your appliances and other devices consume when they are in standby mode—in other words, when they’re being “energy vampires.” This app breaks down this information based on the type of appliance and calculates how much energy you could save by simply unplugging your appliances when they aren’t in use. It is available to download on the Android Marketplace.

Wiser Home

Wiser Home is an intricate app that puts everything together into one convenient place. With Wiser Home, you can track your energy usage, as well as other circumstances that can influence that usage. Perhaps most importantly, this app also integrates a budget feature that allows you to compare all of its results with your energy budget. You can download Wiser Home on iOS and Android.

Energy Tracker

For accurately tracking your energy usage, Energy Tracker is one of the best. Energy Tracker makes it easy to track how much energy you are consuming in your household, and compare that with your energy bills to see where you can reasonably cut costs.

Two of the more useful features on Energy Tracker are the alarm reminders and export functionality. The alarm will keep you honest about inputting data each day, and the export functionality will allow you to export your data to an actual computer for easy analysis.

Energy Tracker is available on iOS for $0.99

GasBuddy

The GasBuddy app, free on iOS, allows you to search for the cheapest gas prices in your area. Getting the cheapest gasoline is a simple way to increase your energy efficiency!

Here’s one more app we think you’ll like…Star Rewards! Through the Star Rewards loyalty program, you can earn cashback on many online purchases. Download the app on iOS or Android to learn more!

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We believe consumer energy choice provides opportunities for consumers. And in the past few months, several studies have been released that back up our belief with raw data.

More than 17 million U.S. households are in deregulated territory, with an increasing number of suppliers competing for their business by offering a variety of innovative products and services, according to an ABACCUS study,. States that top the study’s list include Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, and Ohio.

“The ABACCUS report underscores the value of allowing customers to shop for their electricity provider in terms of innovative products and services and increasing numbers of competitive providers vying for their business,” said COMPETE Counsel William Massey. “…workable retail electric competition can succeed when policy makers put forward a strong policy preference for competition. When this occurs…we see increasing numbers of competitors offering an ever wider array of creative new products and services.”

These findings are echoed in another study that we recently wrote about from COMPETE Coalition. This 20-year study found that energy consumers with a competitive energy choice benefit from better prices, investment, and reliability when compared to their counterparts in a monopoly energy system. Here are some of the highlights from this report:

• From 1997 to 2014, consumers with a competitive choice saw their prices rise 4.5% less than inflation, while customers in monopoly states saw their prices increase 8.4% over the inflation rate. Simply put, consumers in monopoly areas have to pay more than they would in a deregulated area.
• Between 2003 and 2013, accounts served by competitive suppliers increased 524% for commercial customers and 636% for residential customers. Energy choice is becoming much more popular, especially among residential consumers.
• From 2003–2014, electricity demand by competitive suppliers surged even during a period of flat growth in consumption and a national recession. Demand grew 181% for commercial and industrial customers and an incredible 673% for residential energy consumers.

Click here to learn more about the benefits of energy choice for consumers!

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