Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
In less than 10 days, an Austin homeowner should be breaking even or even getting a credit on his electric bill. And he says the City of Austin spent thousands to help him.
Austin home owner Don Iden wanted to save money on his skyrocketing electric bill while doing something positive for the environment.
“One of my goals was to try to reach net zero,” he said.
So he took advantage of the city's solar panel rebate program. He installed 24 solar panels on his roof and only paid $4,000 out of pocket. The city paid more than $14,000. This month, he's seeing all his power needs met by the system.
“On my next bill, I'm going to have no charges for electricity and probably a credit if I can hold to net zero all the way to August 20,” said Iden.
Iden admits he's not running the air conditioner all day and he's taking other energy saving steps.
When his home creates more power than he uses, the extra goes back to the city.
“It appears in the middle of August the hottest time of the month Don's system is crediting back right into the grid 8 KWH,” said Mark Rangel, General Manager of Texas Solar Power Company.
Rangel says the city has one of the most aggressive solar rebate programs in the country, on average paying 65-70% of the cost.
“Right now, for a 3,000-watt system, the average cost is $20,000 and so with Austin Energy's rebate, with $13,500, the system averages around $7,500 and then the customer can apply for a federal income tax credit of $2,000 dollars, making the total cost to customer $5,500 dollars,” Rangel explained.
Iden says he's calculated a $400 yearly savings with the system paying for itself in 10 years.
“This system instead of being an electricity guzzler is an electricity provider,” he said.
The average solar customer is going to see a monthly savings of about $50.
