Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Wednesday Afternoon is “Save Power Day!” in Altadena

It’s Save Power Day Wednesday in Altadena, which means that if you use less energy than you normally do between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., you can earn credits of up to $100 a year on your power bill.

Under Southern California Edison’s “Save Power Day” program, residential customers in Altadena can earn 75 cents per kilowatt hour of conserved energy between 2 and 6 p.m. on designated days, like this Wednesday is.

The prevailing heat usually drives overall power use to high levels in the afternoon, but if you can use some common-sense power saving tools – like keeping doors and windows closed when the air-conditioning is on, turning up your thermostat about four to six degrees, or not running the dryer – you could get the rebate.

SCE calls Save Power days about 12 times a year only on non-holiday weekdays. Residential customers need to enroll in the program so that utility could send them alerts before a Save Power Day is called.

The utility calculates earned bill credits by comparing your usage during the Save Power Day event to the three highest usage dates for the last five days during the same 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. time frame. If your usage is lower on the Save Power Day, you’ll earn a bill credit of 75 cents per kilowatt-hour reduced.

A customer who uses five kilowatt-hours during a Save Power Day event, with an average usage of 10 kWh for the three highest usage days within the previous five days, could earn $3.75 in bill credits for that day. If that happens twelve times a year, that comes up to about $45 in annual savings.

Participation in the Save Power Day program is voluntary. Customers aren’t required to reduce usage and there’s no penalty for not doing so.

The Save Power Day program is one of two popular energy-saving programs that Southern California Edison offers its customers. The other is the Summer Discount Plan, where customers allow the utility to remotely cycle off residential air-conditioning for up to six hours a day. SCE, with the customer’s permission, installs a remote-control device on the air-conditioning unit to be able to shut the unit on and off.