Effective Ways to Save Energy at Home and Reduce Your Energy Bills
These past few weeks brought us another debilitating California heat wave, with temperatures reaching record heights in parts of the Bay Area. For many residents, these increasingly common occurrences bring unpleasant or dangerous temperatures and stress about electric bills. As summers get hotter every year, staying cool and saving on electric bills are top of mind for many Californians. And because residential and commercial buildings account for 25% of total California GHG emissions, there is a significant need to reduce our carbon footprint at the household level. These problems are especially challenging for lower-income residents, who spend a bigger proportion of their income on utilities and are disproportionately affected by the consequences of carbon emissions.
In this article, we will highlight some high-value ways to save energy, so you can cut your utility bills and reduce your carbon footprint. Since California has about an equal number of homeowners and renters, examining strategies for both groups to promote their energy efficiency is essential. These strategies use the rapidly expanding set of government incentives to upgrade to more efficient appliances, insulation, home design, or AC and heating systems. And even if these upgrades aren’t an option for you right now, there are plenty of smaller changes you can make to save energy at home. By focusing on the parts of our homes that use the most energy and making them more efficient, we can achieve the greatest overall savings. This is because increasing the energy efficiency of our homes allows us to stay comfortable while reducing our demand for expensive fossil fuel energy.
How Renters Can Save Energy at Home
Many renters don’t have as much say in how their building is run from an energy perspective, but there are still plenty of energy gains to be made. You may have heard that you can save money by actively reducing your energy use during peak hours (between 4 and 9pm, and especially after 5pm,) because energy is most expensive during these times. But you will also want to make upgrades to your residence so you can save money and energy passively once you install them. To get started, check out the free energy saving toolkit from BayREN, a Bay Area local government coalition that works on sustainability. This kit will give you some great tools to start making changes to save energy at home, like efficient light bulbs, faucet aerators to save hot water, and efficient power strips. In addition, based on their ease of implementation and potential for saving energy, you should consider the following three categories of efficiency upgrades:
- Your home’s lighting is a great place to start. For obvious reasons, lighting is an important part of home energy use, and there are some easy changes you can make right away to cut your daily lighting costs. In particular, you can replace old bulbs, light fixtures, and lamps with ENERGY STAR certified LED bulbs. One ENERGY STAR certified LED (light-emitting diode) lightbulb uses up to 90% less energy than old incandescent bulbs and can save you about $55 in electricity costs over its lifetime of about 14 years. According to the United States Department of Energy (DOE), you can save $75 a year by replacing your home’s five most frequently used light fixtures or bulbs with ENERGY STAR certified products. And as always, make sure to turn off your lights when you are not using them.
- Work on your heating and cooling: We all know that we can save power by changing the temperature setting on your thermostat. The US Department of Energy recommends that you set your thermostat to 68 degrees or lower during winter and to 78 degrees or higher in the summer. Another great way to keep your place more comfortable and save energy is by adding foam weatherstripping around doors and windows. This keeps the outside air from getting in and forcing your AC or heating system to work harder to get the desired temperature. You can also turn off your AC or heat and invest in space heat or fans for parts of your home where you spend the most time. These appliances reduce emissions because they run on electricity and can save you money over time if electricity is cheaper than gas in your area.
- Choose electric cooking methods: Purchasing a new energy-efficient stove might not make sense as a renter. But you can purchase or try out a single burner induction stove at little cost to learn about its immense benefits including cheaper energy bills, (zero fumes, quicker heating, increased safety and simplicity, cleanliness.) Single burner induction appliances can cost as little as $45 including shipping and tax, and you can simply plug it into an electrical outlet in your kitchen. There are also multiple community programs brought to you by Acterra that provide induction cooktops on loan for free, including the Palo Alto and Ava Community Energy Cooktop Loan Programs.
- If you can, talk to your landlord about special demand response programs with utilities where you can get paid for turning off your lights or other devices at set times. These programs are great ways to save energy for buildings, and they will be a financial win-win for you and your building owner since they let utilities literally “buy back” your spare energy. You can also suggest any of the building improvements listed in the homeowners section, such as a smart thermostat, which will automatically adjust the temperature to save energy at home.
How Homeowners Can Save Energy at Home
Compared to renters, homeowners have more opportunities for bigger efficiency changes. (That being said, most strategies that can be used by renters also work for homeowners, so check the Renters section for some lower maintenance opportunities.) But this large set of options for working on your home’s energy efficiency can be overwhelming, and the US Department of Energy (DOE) recommends that residents begin by purchasing an energy audit or conducting one themselves. Both are strong options, and there are various incentives that can cover the costs of outside evaluations and resources available for conducting your own. These examinations will help you find ways to save energy that are tailored to your home, saving you time, energy, and money in the long run. While audits are the best place to get started and decide which changes to make, there are some key home upgrades that everyone should be aware of given their significant financial and climate benefits.
Beginning with the highest-value changes, we have heating and AC system upgrades. Space Heating and cooling uses 31% of total household energy according to the United States Energy Information Administration. If you need to replace your legacy heating or AC system, consider upgrading to a heat pump or energy efficient AC. Heat pumps work by using a refrigerant to absorb the heat from the outdoors and release it indoors to heat your home during the winter. (To learn more about this, check out this article in the MIT Technology Review.) The great thing about heat pumps is that they can also work in the opposite direction to act as an AC unit. Electricity powered heat pumps are 2-3 times more efficient than traditional furnaces or ACs that operate on natural gas or other fossil fuels. While these technologies may show higher up-front price tags, they provide savings over time because of their efficiency and can significantly reduce your energy bills. Further, incentives for California residents from utilities and the government like the TECH Clean California rebate program ($1,000 towards a heat pump) and the Federal Heat Pump Tax Credit (covers 30% of your heat pump installation costs) can significantly abate the steep upfront costs. For a more comprehensive list of incentives, check out the search tools here and here. And make sure to search the internet for local programs and opportunities for low-income residents. Finally, if you are a resident of San Mateo County or the City of Los Baños, look into the incentives from Acterra Partner Peninsula Clean Energy for heat pumps and several other home energy upgrades. To make the most informed decision, research online and talk to a contractor in your area to decide if/when a heat pump will make sense for you.
Photo credit: Freepik
- Continuing on the theme of heating and cooling, weatherizing and insulating your home can yield significant efficiency benefits. There are a growing number of “Home Performance” professionals who specialize in optimizing your home for energy through air sealing, moisture control, ventilation, and insulation. The State also has multiple programs to help you secure these services. Simply sealing air leaks in your home can negate one of the biggest sources of energy loss in buildings. This can be done easily by using caulk, seal, and weatherstrip on all seams, cracks, and openings to the outside. According to the US DOE, you can save 10%–20% on your heating and cooling bills by sealing leaks. (For information on how to do this see this DOE page.) A professional contractor can also help you make sure all of your air ducts are sealed or insulated, especially as they run through unconditioned spaces in your home. This ensures that conditioned air from your central heating/ac/heat pump doesn’t leak out before being released through vents. Generally, the type of insulation you should choose depends on how you will use it and on your budget, but they are all excellent ways to save energy. Visit EnergySaver.gov for more details on these and other types of insulation.
- Water heaters are another great efficiency intervention since they use the third-largest amount of total energy in the average household behind heating and AC. Heat pump water heaters, solar water heaters, and ENERGY STAR electric water heaters are much more efficient than gas powered furnaces. If you need an upgrade, there will be many options available so look for the Energy Star Certification.
- If you are due for a thermostat upgrade, a smart or programmable thermostat is another way to cut your electricity bills, up to 10 percent. (According to the DOE, you can save as much as 10% per year on heating and cooling by turning your thermostat down 7°–10°F for 8 hours a day in the fall and winter, and new thermostats can do this automatically) Programmable thermostats let you automatically turn on the heating or air conditioning at times you schedule, allowing you to automatically save energy when you leave the house, or don’t need conditioning. Smart thermostats are more high-tech, and can adjust the temperature automatically based on your preferences and behavior, and allow you to view your energy use data. You can also program and adjust your thermostat remotely with an app. Utilities like PG&E and Ohmconnect have demand response incentive programs that help you make money on the energy you save with your smart thermostat and other smart devices. While both options save on energy costs over time, programmable thermostats will generally be cheaper up-front.
Photo credit: Dan Lefebvre (Unsplash)
- In addition to heating and changes, you can save energy by upgrading your lighting methods and cooking appliances. See the Renters section above for information about how to save on lighting.
Conclusion
That was a lot of information about ways to save energy at home. Congrats for making it through. For renters, you can get started today with the free BayREN toolkit, and take the time to implement the pillars suggested in this article. For homeowners, conduct or purchase an energy audit, and think about a plan for what projects make the most sense for you, and in what order. In general, you will be the best judge of what makes sense for your home. However, it’s important to remember that switching to an electric appliance can be a great financial opportunity. This is because the government’s climate and energy saving programs are best served when they can cover the upfront costs of these projects and allow people of all income levels to rake in savings on energy cost. The main takeaway: Ride the incentives wave and you will be able to keep your home comfortable, save money over time, and be part of the global effort of reducing our emissions to preserve Earth’s climate and ecosystems.