Save At Home

Check out this video from the MN Energy Challenge giving an overview of ways to save:

Saving energy can make a big impact for residents and businesses:

• It’s a big portion of our overall expenses: energy costs are 5% of the average American family’s expenditure, and around 15% for low-income US families. Business energy use will vary based on the type of business.
• Around 30% of the energy we pay for is waste – energy used for no productive purpose. Around another 30% can be saved through simple technological upgrades that have 8% or more return on investment, better returns than you would get from a savings account or many other investments. Especially for low-income families, taking these actions can mean increased home comfort and health and up to 10% more disposable income available for other uses.
• While a small number of households (neighborhood surveys in South Minneapolis suggest about 15%) know how to save energy and have taken significant action, the vast majority of us haven’t achieved these types of dramatic savings yet. It’s definitely possible, most countries in Europe with similar climates and standards of living use around half the energy per person as people in the US.

Saving energy can be confusing – there’s so many things you can do, and it is hard to tell if what you are doing is making an impact since you only get energy bills for the whole house at the end of each month. Our Power is providing some tools to help you save energy:

Commit to Taking Action: Pledge to take specific actions to save energy in your home on page 2 of the “Take Action Form”

The Our Power Home Energy Guide – provides an energy users manual  to help you understand how energy works in your home and prioritize ways that you can save it and ultimately produce your own. This guide will help you identify the most important things to do and walk you through the essential steps. For businesses, much of this guide will be relevant to your building, though the actual technology and upgrades related to your business operations may be different.

• Click Here to download a PDF copy of the Our Power Home Energy Guide
  

• Or visit our interactive online version of the guide here.

Other Ways to Save:

The Minnesota Energy Challenge, hosted by Center for Energy and the Environment, provides an extensive list of simple things residents can do to save energy in their homes complete with how much you will save. You can join the Our Power team and track your savings with other neighborhood residents by adding actions from their lists that you will take to save energy.

For residents and businesses who would like more hands-on or customized help taking action to save energy and create clean energy, please visit our Sign-Up page to join in existing programs and opportunities.