Your HOA may not like it, but air drying sheets is one way to get by with less electricity.
Pacific Power has been trying to get its customers in Albany and elewhere to cut down on using electricity, which seems strange for a company that sells power.
“Time to save,” the company says in an email that gives you the latest data on how much power your houshold used and how much you paid for that juice.
The utility has advice too — three pieces of advice in fact.
“Use oven lights to check on food.” Looking through the oven window, assuming it’s more or less clean, is supposed to be better than opening the oven door and letting heat escape.
Number two on the list: “Give slow cookers a try.” They use less energy than a stovetop when you’re making stews that take a long time to cook.
“Choose an efficient washer.” That’s number three. Of course if you already have a washer, spending a few hundred bucks on a new one in order to save a little power may not strike you as a wise investment.
How about some other things we can do to keep our “smart meters” from spinning? We all can think of some.
For example, as long as it’s not raining, how about hanging the laundry outside to dry, the way our mothers did?
Or turning off the lights when we leave a room? Or reading a book instead of keeping the TV on for hours at a time? Or turning the thermostat down to 65 this winter, instead of keeping the temperature in a more comfortable range?
Here’s a question: What’s all this preoccupation with not using electricity? What is the power company trying to tell us?
Maybe they are preparing us for what they expect will be a period of power shortages, brown-outs or even blackouts. Shortages might be in our future as Oregon follows California’s lead in trying to phase out fossil fuels and relying on renewable sources of electricity instead.
Sounds like Pacific Power is preparing us for a time when solar and wind won’t be enough to carry the load and the price of electricity will soar to the point where not using any will be smart.
So, you might as well figure out, once the laundry comes out of your new efficient washer, where’s the best place to hang it to dry. (hh)
Hasso pens, in his finest conspiratorial tone: “Sounds like Pacific Power is preparing us for a time when solar and wind won’t be enough to carry the load and the price of electricity will soar to the point where not using any will be smart.”
Not certain if Mr. Hering really believes there’s a connivance at play here, or is his self-prescribed paranoia just a tool in Hasso’s tool box: an old worn flabellum to stir up the fan base, jizzing an already exorcised readership.
Put simply…in Hering Unsubstantiated Speak: It sounds like Hasso Hering is preparing us for a time when mere speculation passes for journalistic integrity.
How about limiting the miles drivin for an electric car ♂️
My neighbors were out on their porch enjoying the lovely weather as their gas HVAC system ran full bore inside for hours.
I’m next door, still turning off all the lights as I move through the house. I have motion sensor lighting for the evenings. It’s also a nice respite from lighting.
Owners of older apartments could be a big help by adding insulation and replacing windows that haven’t been replaced in 1969 when built also how about them hot water heater hang on wall
I don’t have a light in my oven and I don’t have a backyard to dry my clothes and I’ll be damned if I’m going to freeze my butt off in the winter because the government has jumped on the EV bandwagon without any clue as to the reality of it.
I just got my bill…$72.58. The cost of the electricity I used…$31.54; the rest was for “Basic Charge”, ‘Delivery Charge’ and taxes and fees that I have no clue like “System Benefits Charge” and “Public Purpose”, and let’s not forget the Oregon Corp Activities Tax.
And I have no doubt that we will start seeing additional fees and taxes because someone has to pay for building all those charging stations and keeping them maintained.
Pacific Power wants to admit that their woke renewable power will never meet the requirements of their customers. Until our politicians quit preventing planning for more more nuclear power, there is no way out other than paying attention to the company’s crazy “marketing” efforts.
Want to save electricity????? DO NOT VOTE for anyone who demands that you buy an electric car, we; do not now have enough grid capacity to charge them now, let alone when gas cars are made illegal..
This will be an easy task to accomplish as NO current politician “demands that you buy an electric car.” I would be more wary of Pols, or former Pols who say, “Do not take your next breath.”
What a joke. We have plenty of capacity, and we’re already charging all those electric cars now.
Since May 12 when my rooftop solar panels went live my system alone has produced 5.4 megawatt hours of electricity. Of that amount all my electric needs were met and I exported 363.2 kilowatt hours into the Portland General Electric grid. My electric bill has gone from an average of $132 a month to $12.61 a month, the minimum required payment for being connected to the grid.
You’re clueless. NO, not correct. You’re just another right-wing fibber, saying what you want to be true, instead of what is really true.
The left wing libber strikes again. As somebody who owns an electric car (surprised Bob) and investigated putting solar panels in, I can tell you that solar panels in Oregon are a joke as the proposal to me was it would cost me no money up front but I would pay off the $50,000 installation cost over 25 years and my payments would be offset by the savings on my current electric bill (so inesseence a total push). The great sticking point is the panels come from China and the 25 year guarantee is also by the Chinese company so if they go bad you are out of luck as you will still owe the money on the financed loan. And, a piece of news to Bob-the only way to get enough electricity to power electric cars without carbon sources is nuclear power which I am in favor of but the liberals hate it!
Wrong on a lot of counts, as usual.
I saved my own money in advance and did not take out a loan. Paid cash. I get my cash savings NOW. Weren’t you some kind of accountant? Don’t you know that saving for the future is the smartest thing anyone can do?
In any case if it’s a cash push on the loan, you’re still doing the right thing by putting more electricity into production through an environmentally sound source.
Purchased it through Benton Electric of Albany, a long standing well known business and an IBEW Union shop. The solar panels were NOT manufactured in China, they’re manufactured in Bellingham WA and Mt Vernon WA by Silfab Solar, a Canadian company. My roof mounting system was manufactured in Vancouver WA.
Since you have an electric car, then you probably do what most folks do, you set the car to charge between 10 PM and 8 AM to take advantage of cheap Off-Peak power. That saves you money, and it’s a time when electricity is most abundant: When people are sleeping.
As far as California, well this is Oregon, Al.
Pacific Gas & Electric [bankrupt through massive corporate malfeasance] is not Portland General Electric. PGE is a well managed company whose stock has doubled since I bought it, even in the current lousy market conditions. And there is Bonneville Power, Pacific Power, Consumers Power etc. all providing power into our market and rapidily expanding their sources of renewable power.
“…the only way to get enough electricity to power electric cars without carbon sources is nuclear power. ” That comment is absurd on the face of it: Hydro, wind, solar, bio-gas, geothermal, tidal, wood and hydrogen are the easiest to name.
I am not unilaterally opposed to nuclear. But ever since the 1950’s the nuclear industry has failed to provide the safe and permanent storage of nuclear waste that they promised. When they live up to their promises and responsibility for providing that storage, and quit trying to push that cost onto the Federal government, I’m onboard. I’m especially interested in the small modular nuclear reactor design that started at OSU, now being tested by NuScale Power.
How come your electric bill was so high? My bill for July for 29 days was 45.51. The most it has ever been is about $75.00. I don’t qualify for roof top solar panels from the electric company yet.
No they didn’t SAY you had to buy an electric, but when they say you can not use fossil fuel cars in a few years what does that say Hartman? As to capacity, California is already in brown out demanding that people do not use their air conditioning and while you may get away with recharging from solar, you should remember that you do not drive very much compared to what you used to, and not everybody has a tier I Pers retirement check where many folks get more in retirement than they did when they were employed, so you could buy a system without being subsidized by everybody else.
By the way, we are charging less then 10% of the cars on the road, multiply the load by 10 and then try to figure it out.
“…and not everybody has a tier I Pers retirement check where many folks get more in retirement than they did when they were employed…:
While that may be true (29K active-inactive Tier-1 folks vs 384K in the system). It’s a red herring inasmuch as the program has changed multiple[!] times since that debacle. Fact of life, the folks in Tier-1 are dying off. I don’t begrudge folks from using the system as it was laid out.
Nevertheless, all the PERS info is here – by name. And yes, my name there as Tier-2 getting a whomping 24% of my salary at retirement.
So why don’t the tier 1 and 2 employees get their own union as the current union is totally for the benefit of the old pers retirees
https://gov.oregonlive.com/pers/
Wow Ray. I clicked on this link and scrolled thru all the thousands of people retired on tier 1 PERS. The list is quite a eye opener. The top third or so of people are paid a very large amount of retirement money. I thought I made a pretty good income when I was working, but it was not even close to the retirement check those on the upper third of the list get! My wife gets a PERS retirement, but is way down towards the bottom of the list.
Yes, Tier-1 folks are the oldest and as such, have the higher rate of return. That is the major “choke point” in the system. Every year that goes by, the system improves as there are less… Time will fix the problem.
Could it be that the power company is providing a public service announcement in light of a pending global energy shortage? This is, in large part, due to the Russian war against Ukraine and Europe blocking gas imports. Prices will be impacted this winter.
Energy – especially electricity – isn’t infinite. Changing customer habits can offset or delay capital projects (i.e. new plants, upgraded infrastructure). Energy use is also tied to carbon emissions and I think we all would like to find ways to reduce that.
Mr. Hering does model sustainable living with his bicycle riding habits!
Excellent post.
Pacific Power and NW Natural Gas are simply trying to survive the current political climate. There is no other economic reason to advocate for buying less of the product they sell. Of course, reasonable conservation of resources is a good thing, and they are probably for that. But politically we are not experiencing “reasonable.”
Go solar and really lower your bill..,have been leasing panels for 10 years on two buildings and drive a hybrid Prius . Talk about almost non existent power bills and gas usage. Almost feel sorry for you all that buy into the negative propaganda about solar and hybrids, but then you would just find something else to be negative about if you had one so enjoy your high bills and gripes Congratulation that you ride a bike would if I could.
So
Thought one
There’s a production/gap that needs attention because of the fallout from the Ukraine invasion. Storage of wind and solar is too early in development to help. Nuclear is anathema because there’s still no viable way to deal with rhe byproduct. Encouraging conservation continues to be cost-effective to cut peak loads.
Thought 2
Incentivizing conservation continues to be cost-effective in reducing peak loads to fit available capacity.
Don’t have long-handled references to cite. Left the proprietary paper documents with my employer.