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.
The city of Austin aims to become a testing ground for new technologies to cut electricity use.
The city announced an agreement with Environmental Defense Fund and some major corporations to install new grid equipment to create an electricity technology testing ground.
Corporate partners are GE Energy, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Freescale Semiconductor and GridPiont.
The plan includes a clean energy public/private research and development consortium. The consortium will develop clean energy technology and technology that allows people to install small power generation devices, such as solar panels, at home.
The group said in a new release Wednesday that Austin is an ideal spot to test grid technology because the Texas grid operates independently from U.S. grids. Changes don't require federal approval.
