How to cut your hydro bill without really trying

Energy prices are going nowhere but up. Home energy monitors are one way to help you find savings.

Energy monitoring devices include an optical reader strapped to your meter. The reader sends information to a monitor that shows current consumption in either kilowatts or dollars.

By: Adam Mayers Personal Finance Editor

Before Christmas, Ontario Energy minister Bob Chiarelli warned that energy prices are going nowhere but up, and if you don’t like your hydro bill, then do something about it.

He challenged us to change our behaviour by choosing how much we pay for power under the province’s three-tier electricity pricing.

The obvious and easy way to cut your cost is to use as many high-energy appliances as you can between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., which is the cheapest time of use. Running the dryer or dishwasher at night will cost almost half as much as in the morning.

Another way is with an energy monitor. These relatively inexpensive devices track your usage in real time. An optical reader is attached to your meter, which sends a continuous stream of information to the monitor. The monitor shows how much you’re spending at any given time.

The devices are available at hardware and home improvement stores for about $100. My local Canadian Tire has a Black & Decker model, knocked down to $25 as a clearance item. They are simple to install for those with basic DIY skills.

And they do work, mainly because you’re paying attention and by turning off and unplugging you can cut your cost. In a 2012 study, Alberta’s energy and environment ministries gave the monitors to 300 people for two months. They found an average saving of 9 per cent. For those heating with electricity the saving was 17 per cent. A 2004 study for Hydro One followed 400 people for 2½ years and found an average saving of 6.5 per cent.

Since January, I’ve been testing a monitor made by BlueLine Innovations, a company based in St. John’s, N.L. BlueLine has been working with Ontario’s PeakSaverPlus program for almost two years and has about 160,000 of its devices in Ontario homes.

We’ve uncovered one expensive habit, came across easy fixes and learned that a few things we have plugged in don’t make much difference.

PeakSaverPlus was developed by Toronto Hydro in 2007 as a way to encourage conservation and ease power demand during heat waves. The utility gives customers a BlueLine monitor in exchange for a new thermostat that allows air conditioners, water heaters and pool pumps, to be adjusted remotely when power demand hits a critical level.

The utility has 67,000 PeakSaver customers, says Toronto Hydro’s Tanya Bruckmueller. She adds that the devices are rarely triggered and most people don’t even notice when they are.

BlueLine’s monitors are also being used in 26 other Ontario utilities and Peter Porteous, the company’s CEO, says a lot of the savings come from greater awareness. I’d have to agree with that.

“It’s the forgotten stuff, stuff that stays plugged in, chargers, monitors,” he says. “The little things that seem insignificant.”

The monitor has been in a prominent place in the family room. The biggest impact has been the ability to show what happens when we turn lights off, or run the same appliance at peak versus off-peak times.

Related: 16 ways to cut your hydro bill

Here a few things I’ve learned:

·  Underfloor heating can be expensive. A few years ago, we installed a small section in an upstairs bathroom. It stays on 24/7 between November and May at 27C - a deal breaker for my wife. The floor uses about 0.4 kw per hour, which comes out to 92 cents a day, $5.96 a week (factoring in off-peak weekends) and $180 for seven months. No complaints from me, though. What price can you put on a happy, warm-footed spouse?

·  To keep away the winter blues, we have twinkle lights in the backyard and on a tree out front. Four strings in all. They’re usually on between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., which is one hour at peak and four at off-peak. It’s a much better energy deal. The average cost per day with both on is under 4 cents.

·  Often, both computers are in use and left on in sleep mode overnight. If both were on all the time, drawing 0.1kw per hour, the weekly cost would be $1.49, or $77.48 a year.

You can wander around your house turning things on and off to find out what happens or visit the U.S. government web site energy.gov, which has a list of appliances and a formula for calculating the cost.

A BlueLine kit is available on Amazon.com. Or you can join the PeakSaver program and get it for free. A third option is to check your home improvement store for an equivalent product.

Ontario’s winter electricity prices

Peak: Weekdays 7 a.m. - 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. - 7 p.m., 12.9 ¢/kWh

Mid-Peak: 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. weekdays, 10.9 ¢/kWh

Off-peak: Weeknights 7 p.m. – 7 a.m., and all weekends, 7.2 ¢/kWh