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Chances are you’ve been asked to save energy before. Why should you now? Though our electricity is silent, every time we turn on an appliance or up the heat we are making a choice — one that’s about more than the size of our bill at the end of the month. We are making choices about our economy, environment and health. Consider these reasons why being smarter energy users makes a difference: - Higher prices and reliability. Electricity can’t be stored. Our utilities must be ready at all times to produce as much power as we need at any given moment. Utilities must be prepared for times when power demand rises to the highest levels, like cold winter days. This is typically when electricity production costs are the highest. These costs ultimately are passed on to consumers, meaning higher energy bills for you. If we lower our energy use, we will reduce the power peaks, when electricity is at its most expensive. “Shaving” these peaks helps keep prices down and improve reliability of power delivery.
- Reduce air pollution. Virginians rely on electricity to power their homes and businesses and support their quality of life. However, pollution caused by the combustion of fossil fuels has detrimental effects on Virginia's climate and air and water quality, and can affect the health of its citizens and wildlife. Electricity conservation contributes to the reduction of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
- Ease the need power plants and power lines. Our energy use is growing. Houses have been getting bigger, generally speaking. We have more devices that require more power. We’re plugging in more stuff. The number of Virginians is on the rise with nearly 1 million more people today than 10 years ago. So we need to value our power and reduce energy use where we can. If we don’t providers of electricity must plan for meeting such growth with new capacity additions.
The smart answer is to all of these issues is to save energy. Doing so will save our families money, but it will also create jobs (from energy upgrades and sales of energy efficiency products) and ensure power reliability (an important thing for our digital economy and manufacturers who need a steady power stream) while reducing emissions that are otherwise harmful to our planet and our health.
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