CuttingCosts101.com – Learn How to Save Money!

Peak Saver is a new program that Hydro One has implemented in order to save electricity costs during peak usage times in the summer months.  They come to your house and install a new programmable thermostat that you can control from anywhere that has internet access.  By signing up, Hydro One is allowed to communicate with your thermostat and raise your setpoint by 2 degrees for up to 4 hours (excluding weekends and holidays).  This helps the reliability of the hydro service as well as help to keep prices the way they are.

Here are some benefits of signing up:

- You will help to preserve energy for future generations

- Enjoy up to 10% energy costs savings with your new thermostat

- Get a one-time $25 credit on your hydro bill

- Get a free programable thermostat professionally installed.

- Have the convenience of changing your home temperature from anywhere there’s internet access.

To be eligible you must have a central air conditioning unit in working condition, live in a single family home or townhouse, and be the homeowner or have the homeowner’s permission to participate.

To sign up you can call 1-866-380-6051 or visit hydro one’s website: www.HydroOne.com/peaksaver

I was checking my mail today and noticed a pamphlet from Hydro One introducing a new online program called Power Saver Plus.  Power Saver Plus is a free online application that audits your energy use and gives you advice on how to improve your energy efficiency and save some money.

All you have to do to take advantage of this program is go to www.Hydroonenetworks.com/powersaverplus to get started.  Once you’re there, you will be prompted to enter details about your home or apartment.  After that, you will then enter details about heating and cooling as well as information about the different appliances you have in your home.

After entering all your information about your home, the program will calculate where you can make energy improvements and how much money you can save (your hydro rates are taken into consideration for these calculations).

Aside from learning where you can save energy and money, you can enter your previous billing amounts (up to 13 months) and compare your annual energy costs with other customers.  By doing this, you can see if you are on par in terms of energy usage with customers with similar information.

I took the time to sign up for this program before writing this review and I found Power Saver Plus to be a useful tool.  I discovered that although i’m below average in energy costs, there are some significant improvements I can take advantage of to reduce my usage and costs even more.  I would definitely recommend that you click on the link above and take the time to enter your information and see where you stand.

Happy Easter everyone!

I was just at Canadian Tire on the weekend and I saw the Black and Decker Power Monitor there and decided to give it a shot.  I got it installed on my Smart Hydro Meter, but quickly found that the unit was having trouble picking up the sigal from the Smart Meter.  After several attempts to find troubleshooting for my particular type of hydro meter, I decided to read more on the Smart Meter technology on the Hydro One Website…

What I found was that by 2010, all Ontario residents will have a Smart Meter installed and will be able to view your energy usage online.  This way you can track what times you are using the most energy, and then you can adjust to keep your energy usage at a minimum during peak hours.  With that being said, this will also be the start of Time-of-Day (TOD) billing which will see high rates during peak hours (estimated at 8.8 cents per kW) and low rates during off hours (estimated at 4.0 cents per kW)

Therefore, if you currently live in Ontario and have purchased a Black and Decker Power Monitor, it will essentially be useless by sometime next year.  You will be able to more accurately check your usage on the internet and have access to the past 13 months of usage to monitor your progress.  I suggest that if you’ve purchased the Power Monitor recently, you take it back for a refund and wait patiently for the smart meter technology to come into effect.