Maritime Electric is developing a plan to conserve energy over the next five years.
The utility has filed its Demand Side Management and Energy Conservation Plan with the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission for 2011-15.
It is the second phase of the Renewable Energy Act. The first phase was from 2005-10 and included programs such as the Winter Challenge and lighting exchanges over the past few years.
Under the act, Maritime Electric is required to reduce the intensity of peak demand by 10 per cent in two stages. The first stage requires a five per cent reduction by this year and a further five per cent from 2011-15.
“It’s really important that we do that. It’s required by law and we take it very seriously,’’ said Kim Griffin, who handles communications for the utility.
The new programs that will be offered to the public are still in the preliminary stages and will be outlined over the coming winter but they will reach out to the public and to the school system.
“We have quite a few programs that are going to focus on lighting and the future of technology being LED lights. Over the next five years we will be promoting people converting to LED lights at home to save on their power bills and there is a significant challenge to do that.’’
Part of the challenge is the high cost of LED lights.
“The prices are just starting to come down and the technology is at the point now where it’s really improving. We’re still going to be promoting to customers to convert to energy efficient LED Christmas lights.’’
The plan will also include new website tools and commercial and business audits.
Griffin said the highly successful winter challenge isn’t likely coming back in 2010-11.
“We think we have pretty well maximized the number of people that would participate in Winter Challenge so we’re actually going to be developing a new program for 2011.
The challenge ran for the month of December in 2009, and anyone who lowered their electricity consumption by 10 per cent from December 2008 would get a 10 per cent credit on their bill.
Anyone who succeeded was also entered into a draw to have their electric bill paid for one year. Over 8,500 households signed up for the program with half meeting the target.
“We have several thousand customers saving in the 15 to 20 per cent (area) off their bills every month just from what they learned over the Winter Challenge.’’
If Maritime Electric fails to meet its target there will be fines and penalties so the programs the utility is talking about are aimed at achieving the end result.
“We feel that we are on target to meet our target of nine megawatts by this January and then (onto the) second stage.’’
For more information on Maritime Electric’s plan, call 629-3756.
