The customer is charged a specific rate for energy, which is read off your electric meters. The electric utility does not always pay the same amount per kilowatt hours as you, the customer. There are times during the day when the price will go up depending upon the amount of energy being used by all the customers on the electric generation plants and transmission lines. For the members of North Itasca Electric Cooperative, we share the power and transmission lines with 27 other cooperatives that receive energy from Great River Energy (GRE). It is GRE’s responsibility to generate or purchase enough energy for 28 cooperatives.

When GRE estimates the amount of electric generation needed, it takes various things into account including the temperature, humidity, future weather, air conditioning loads and much more. The weather changes the efficiencies of generation. The hotter and more humid it is outside, the harder the generation equipment needs to work to produce the energy needed by the customer. This raises the cost of production in itself. There are also times that our power is purchased on the market by other generation plants to keep up with demand. This is when energy conservation is very important. Additional power is purchased on the market from other sources by GRE which is very costly. These costs can be much higher than what the cooperative sells it for. These are the times that it benefits the cooperative not to sell power and why we ask our members to conserve energy.

Last summer, you may have heard radio announcements asking customers to “wait until 8:00 or wait until late” before doing laundry, running dishwashers, turning off un-needed lighting, etc. During the daytime hours of Monday – Friday between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., a large number of people are off to their jobs. The demand for energy is low during these hours for residential customers but after 5 p.m., the kids are home from school playing video games on the computer, the television is on, Mom is cooking dinner on the electric range, Dad may be in the shop running power tools, and it is hot outside so the air conditioner is on.

You may say “I am paying for the power I use.” At times of high demand, however, customers are paying for only a small portion of the power the cooperative needs to purchase. The additional energy costs are being purchased at a higher cost than what customers are being charged.

Just think a few minutes about what energy conservation means. If everyone would reduce the amount of energy used, this would mean lower electric bills, of course, but it would also mean the reduction in additional generation needed and may even prevent the need to purchase additional energy at the higher cost. If we do not conserve now, we will find that new power plants will be needed, driving up the cost of your utility bills even higher to pay for the plants. Building new power plants may also add to the problem of global warming because of additional pollutants going into the atmosphere which could be another article on “Why Consider Energy Conservation.”

• Change a Light Bulb Campaign. Cooperatives give rebates for the purchase of CFL light bulbs which use a fraction of the energy of a standard light bulb. Turn lights off when not in use.
• Off-Peak Water Heating programs. Lower water heating cost.
• Off-Peak Space Heating programs. Lower the cost of heating your home to approximately half the cost of propane and 100% efficient.
• Cycled Air Conditioning program. Reduce your cooling cost by approximately half. ASHPs (air source heat pumps) are also included.
• Consider installing an ASHP. These units are used for heating and cooling your home and are 300% efficient. They can be placed on an off-peak program saving even more heating and cooling cost.
• GSHP (ground source heat pump) is the least expensive way to heat and cool your home.
• Follow “Wait until eight” public service announcements.
• Make sure your home is properly insulated.