Major Appliances = Major Energy Usage
NEW CONCORD, Ohio – Many modern households have several things in common, such as the major appliances that make 21st Century living more comfortable and convenient.
Refrigerators, cook stoves, hot water tanks, air conditioners, along with washers and dryers create a base amount of monthly energy usage, which can be affected by how they are set and what time of the day they are operated.
“And as we’ve shut down power plants and we’ve increased demand for electric, via data centers or electric vehicles or whatever you want to say, we have gotten closer to surpassing our generation capacity every year. And we start to run the risk of not having enough electric on the grid. So on those peak hours of the hottest days, is where we really need to watch what we’re doing and try to reduce electric use,” Guernsey Muskingum Electric Cooperative Energy Advisor Ray Crock said.
As summer temperatures climb throughout the late afternoon and into the evening, people return home to go about their household routines, as some electricity providers have already turned to ‘time of day’ billing to incentivize off peak electric consumption.
“Usually by 9 o’clock we’ve surpassed our peak,” Crock explained. “At that point in time, people can put the clothes in the dryer. Maybe even a little later, 10-11 o’clock and then pull them out the next morning. Running the dishwasher, well that’s one thing that… yeah, you can have everything loaded and then at 9 o’clock or so at night, you can turn on the dishwasher and let it run then. And you’ve just bypassed that to a later time period, which maybe gets us through the possibility of rolling blackouts at some point in time.”
By proactively paying attention to your energy usage and responsibly diverting the load away from the hours of peak generation, you can not only help your neighbors but better prepare yourself for the day when your electric provider may institute ‘time of day’ rate adjustments.
