Certainly, you want to enjoy a hot shower and to relax at the end of a long day. What you do not want to do, however, is to use hot water unnecessarily in the home and to end up spending more on your electricity bill than is necessary.  Whether you have signed up with IDT Energy or with another company, these tips can help you to cut down on your hot water usage.

Only run your dishwasher when it is full and use the air dry or energy saver option if you have one for drying the dishes.  If you wash dishes by hand, use cold water to do so, or rinse the dishes in a tub of clean water rather than running them under a hot water faucet.

Make sure that any leaky faucets are quickly fixed.  You can actually waste as much as 182 liter-sized bottles of water each week with leaks.  If the hot water faucet is the one that is leaking, you are paying for that wasted water with your energy dollars.

Deregulation has given rise to competition among energy suppliers in New York; among those ESCOs a New Yorker can choose from is IDT Energy. IDT Energy has years of experience supplying New Yorkers with their electricity and natural gas, and is a qualified supplier. Working together with local utilities such as Con Edison in New York City or other utilities found in other areas in New York State, IDT Energy works within the infrastructure of the utility delivering and supplying power in a trouble-free and convenient manner.

Deregulation allowed competition to develop among the energy suppliers, which resulted in improved service and rates for consumers. Because of deregulation people have much more control of the source of their electricity and natural gas, which helps improve service and keep rates competitive.

When considering choosing an ESCO like IDT Energy in New York, it is important to understand how the system operates. First of all, it is necessary to be clear that there are two separate parts to energy service: those are 1. Supply, and 2. Delivery.

The delivery of natural gas and electricity will continue to be the utility company that has been responsible for this function until now. Companies such as Con Edison in New York have been the supplier and the deliverer, and now will continue to be the one delivering the power. But because of deregulation the consumer can choose the supplier, which may, or may not remain the original utility. There are many ESCOs to choose from in New York, IDT Energy being one of them.

By choosing an ESCO like IDT Energy the consumer is exercising his right to pick the supplier of electricity and gas which will suit his needs best, whether because of competitive prices or valued services, or other aspects of power supply that the consumer finds useful, convenient or important in other ways.

IDT Energy is an ESCO, which means it is an Energy Supply Company. Several years ago the state of New York legislated the separation and deregulation of the energy market with the intention of fostering the competition which traditionally, in the United States, allows companies to compete in the energy marketplace for customers, thereby improving services and helping control prices, giving more consumers more choice.
This trend has been seen in many states, where legislatures and the public utility commissions of those states have deregulated the power industry, opening retail competition for electric and gas supply.

When we think of the place where we experience the largest increase in power use over the summer, we immediately think of our air conditioners. IDT Energy knows that air conditioner usage can become a real drain on the budget, so here are a few ideas which IDT Energy encourages you to try so that you can save a bit of money on your electric bill this summer.

Some tips and pointers to save when keeping cool in the summer heat.

1.    Take advantage of the cooler temperatures the evening brings. Do you have something to do which is labor intensive? Try waiting until the evening or very early morning before the oppressive heat of the day has arrived. Need to use the clothes dryer? Dishwasher? Other appliances which create heat? Wait until the evening, or even better, when no one is at home. Hopefully this practice should reduce the need to cool down your house during the hottest times of the day.

2.    Keep the central air conditioning unit out of the sun. If you can place it on the north side of the house this is the best. You can also plant shrubbery or trees around it so that it is in the shade most of the day. Keeping the a/c out of the sun allows the unit to work more efficiently, bringing you more cool air for less power exerted.

3.    Do you have a de-humidifier? Then use it! Helping to keep the humidity down to a minimum goes a long way to keeping your house cooler for less electricity expended.

Way to go IKEA. In a bold, but not at all surprising move, IKEA will be the first US retailer to phase out incandescent light bulbs. They plan to begin by August 1, 2010, far before the federal legislation that will require phasing out incandescent bulbs begins in 2012. Learn more about IKEA’s explanation for this bold move here.

Learn about the new partnership between the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Solar Technology Acceleration Center.  Their partnership certainly showed a serious commitment to solar energy and to creating green solutions.  This week, as the article explains, EPRI announced the installation of a 187 kilowatt photovoltaic research system on a roof in its headquarters.

Their goal, as explained by an executive from SolarCity, “is to make solar a more widely used source of U.S. electricity generation.”

According to an article in Science Daily, it is possible for homeowners to save up to 8% on their summertime cooling bills by installing a new roof and attic system which is under development at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a division of the Department of Energy.

As far as design for energy savings, roofs have not changed much for hundreds of years. It seems that now, however the roof’s time as arrived. At ORNL a team known at the “Building Envelopes Group” is working on subventing, radiant barriers, reflective pigments and coatings, and thermal mass components to find new ways to keep what we want in (cool air in summer and warm air in winter) and keep what we don’t want out, (warm air in summer, cool air in winter.)

The prototype which has been developed has succeeded to reduce attic temperatures by 22 degrees Fahrenheit during an average summer afternoon, therefore lowering the amount of heat which is transferred into the home’s living space, helping to keep things cooler and cooling systems working less.

IDT Energy is happy to bring this information to you, and wish you a cool summer and lots of happy energy saving days.

Certainly, we’d all like to save money on our electricity expenses.  There are many ways to do so, from switching to a less expensive provider like IDT Energy, to looking into natural energy resources.

One of the up and coming natural energy sources is wind energy.  It is possible to harness the energy of the wind’s motion (kinetic energy) and to convert it into mechanical force or electricity that can then be used to perform work.

This is a source of energy that is worth learning more about and considering for the home and for our industrial needs in the future.  There are many natural resources of this sort that can help us to cut down on our reliance on fossil fuels and to help the environment – while saving ourselves money in the process.

Learn more about how ten American governors are joining forces to encourage more wind energy farms. They just signed a memorandum of understanding that creates the Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Consortium which they hope will generate thousands of jobs in manufacturing, construction and operations related to new wind energy development.  Read more about this interesting memorandum and the goals of these ten governors.