Seven-city energy partnership saves $1m-plus with efficiency

Seven cities in Washington state have saved more than $1 million on their electricity bills since launching a Home Energy Reporting program in October 2010, according to the energy efficiency firm Opower.

Residents of cities in the C-7 New Energy Partnership received regular, personalized reports from Opower designed to help them better understand how they were using energy, and how they could cut consumption to save both electricity and money. Paid for with economic stimulus funds, the program involved the cities of Bellevue, Issaquah, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Redmond, Renton and Sammamish.

In the year since it was launched, the program has resulted in an overall energy savings of nearly eight million kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to Opower. That’s about as much as is used by 1,000 homes over the course of a year.

Overall, the approximately 90,000 households participating reduced their energy use by some 1.6 percent.

“Energy efficiency is widely considered one of the most attainable ways of conserving natural resources while delivering significant financial savings,” said Denis Law, the mayor of Renton. “Our residents care about energy efficiency, they simply need better tools to help them understand how they’re doing and what they can be doing better.”

Every two months, Opower would provide participating residents with reports offering details about their individual electricity and natural gas use, including:

• Progress trackers showing how their energy use changes over time, enabling them to set targets for energy savings and track the effectiveness of any energy-reducing steps they make.
• Personalized energy efficiency tips chosen specifically for each household based on its energy use and the characteristics of the home.
• Comparisons showing how their electricity and natural gas use compares to the aggregate usage of anonymous customers in similar-sized homes. Only the customer’s own detailed energy information was included in each report.
• High-bill alerts, sent by request via text message or email halfway through the month, alerting participatns of potentially high electric bills, with tips on how to avoid them.

“The C-7 is a great example of how communities can work together to make a difference, and the response from consumers to date in the seven cities has been very positive,” said Josh Bufford, client solutions executive at Opower.