By By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
Washington’s City Council reviewed an energy management implementation plan that’s expected to reduce its electric bill and those of Washington Electric Utilities customers.
The plan, also known as the load-management plan, calls for installing 1,500 additional load-management switches during the next year.
“This will save residential customers $65,000 on their electric bills and all retail customers $150,000 in net wholesale purchases,” reads a list of “talking points” provided to council members and the mayor during the council’s meeting Monday. “Last year, 2,441 residential customers saved over $150,000 by participating in the City’s Load Management program. This is equal to a 3.5% or $4.50 per month average savings on their electric bill.”
City officials have said that load management is an effective way to reduce WEU customers’ electric bills and what the city pays for electricity at the wholesale level.
The council wants WEU customers take advantage of WEU’s load-management program, in which devices are installed on some electric appliances such as electric water heaters, heat pumps/central air conditioners and auxiliary heat sources such as heat strips. Those devices, which are radio-controlled, allow the city to turn off those appliances during times when peak demands are expected. That saves the city and its power customers money. WEU customers in the load-management program receive credits each month on their electric bills.
The appliances are controlled for no more than four hours a day for a few days each month.
Keith Hardt, WEU director, told the council there are about 100 people on the waiting list to have load-management switches installed.
The city’s budget for this fiscal year, includes $300,000 to pay for installing load-management devices on WEU customers’ electric water heaters, heat pumps/central air conditioners and heat strips.
During budget talks in May, Hardt said having all qualified WEU customers participating in the load-management program would save the city — and its qualified power customers — about $1.3 million a year.
After reviewing the plan, Mayor Archie Jennings said, “Finally, I feel like we’re doing something.”
The council and the city’s Electric Utilities Advisory Commission want to make sure that WEU customers are aware of the load-management program. To that end, the city plans to use media outlets such as newspapers and the city government channel (channel 9) on the cable TV system that serves Washington to spread the word about the program.
Currently, the program is voluntary, but Hardt, during the meeting Monday, reminded the council to not “rule out the possibility of mandatory” participation in the program. Making the program mandatory would maximize savings, he’s said previously.
For additional coverage of the council’s meeting, see future editions.