High electricity bill? I tried to lower mine with these energy efficient habits

High electricity bill? I tried to lower mine with these energy efficient habits

Hannah Morse

Palm Beach Post

May 9, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

It's expensive to live in the Sunshine State — whether that's property insurance premiums that could push people out of their houses, or the cost to refuel at the pump, or even the price of a breakfast spread at home.

Your electricity bill is no exception. Florida Power & Light raised the bill for using 1,000 kilowatt hours of energy for most customers by as much as $24 over a four-month period this year alone, because of the money it spent on fuel and recovering from hurricanes. In 2020, a 1,000-kilowatt-hour bill was $94.38. Today, for most FPL customers, it's $139.95. Former Gulf Power customers paid $135.73 back then and now are charged $158.86.

So what can the average resident do? With the hotter months of the year upon us, undoubtedly leading to higher electricity bills, one option is to reduce your electricity usage by adopting energy-efficient habits or investing in home improvements that optimize your intake.

That's what I did for one 31-day billing period. I wanted to know if small changes I made, like turning off the lights when leaving a room or using cold water to wash clothes, could make a difference. I also spoke with energy efficiency experts to guide me in my approach.

This experiment was not perfect. More definitive conclusions can be drawn with a year's worth or more of data, not just one month. Plus, February and March are cooler than the summer when bills are higher, in large part because of one culprit: the air conditioner.

By the end of this experiment, my energy usage was just 3 kWh less than the previous month, translating to $0.40 of savings.

When comparing data from this experiment period to the same billing period in 2022 — which was two days shorter with an average daily high temperature that was six degrees cooler — my energy use was down by 25%. I went from using 847 kWh during the 2022 February/March billing period to 605 kWh this year, a difference of $24.

Still, one nonprofit that advocates for energy efficiency and renewable energy told me it's not enough for consumers to tackle this issue alone. Electric utilities, and FPL in particular, should be a bigger part of the conversation by offering more and better efficiency incentives to consumers, said Forest Bradley-Wright, energy efficiency director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

This month, SACE and other groups asked regulators to require more from electric utilities in terms of setting greater energy efficiency goals. Their asks included changing a benchmark that views energy efficiency programs as lost revenue, as well as an analysis method that suggests consumers will make certain improvements if it pays for itself within two years. In a split vote, the Public Service Commission declined to include these requests.

"I spent a lot of years working in energy efficiency and I'm a huge advocate for helping customers figure out ways to lower their bills," Commissioner Gary Clark, who previously served as a vice president at West Florida Electric Cooperative, said on May 2. "But I am also an advocate that that is where the responsibility lies: it lies with the customer, predominantly. They have to make those decisions."

The 31-day experiment for lowering my electricity bill in Palm Beach County

The ways in which a resident can lower their electricity bills through energy efficiency methods depend on where they live. A family of five living in a large single-family home will undoubtedly face a higher monthly electricity bill compared to a couple in a 1,000-square-foot apartment, the latter being my case.

But homeowners can invest in energy-efficient appliances, change their windows, improve their insulation and more to make sure as little energy is being wasted as possible — a high cost up front, but better in the long run. Some electric utilities offer rebates to reduce these costs.

As for renters, any chance of making a dent in their electricity bill mostly comes from adjusting their habits.

Before my experiment officially began between February 10 and March 13, I compiled 25 months-worth of data from my FPL account to understand my usage. I broke it down by monthly cost, monthly kWh usage, the cost per kWh and the type of energy used. FPL's categories include cooling, water heating, electronics, lighting, kitchen, refrigeration, laundry & cleaning, miscellaneous and "always on."

With this, I could see the months when the bill was lower because outside temperatures were cooler or I was out of town, as well as the time my cooling costs were $10 higher than the previous month because my air conditioner was running nonstop (as it turned out, my A/C unit needed coolant).

FPL and other utilities do offer free energy audits that both homeowners and renters can request. I got an audit, and did the following for 31 days:

• Turned off lights and fans when leaving the room;
• Turned off computer when finished for the day;
• Turned off power strips when not in use;
• Took showers in 10 minutes or less;
• Used cool water when washing clothes;
• Cleaned lint filter before every dryer load;
• Kept blinds on east-facing windows closed in the morning;
• Adjusted the thermostat based on the weather when out of the house or sleeping.

Cooling is usually the highest cost category for any customer. It made up between 30% and 50% of my monthly bills, and therefore was the greatest opportunity for change.

These costs are closely correlated with the temperature outside.

Customers who keep their A/C at the same temperature year-round are often surprised by this, said Bianca Soriano, a communications manager with FPL.

"Yes, your A/C has always been at 75 (degrees), but now it has to turn on 10 more times a day to keep your home at 75 (degrees) because it's way hotter outside," she said.

The lower your temperature is set, the more it has to compensate for this, as well as "humidity buildup inside and all the other factors at the home," added Rolando Marrero, senior energy solutions specialist at Florida Power & Light.

To save energy during warmer months, Energy Star, which is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, suggests using your typical A/C setting as the baseline. If you're out of the house for long periods during the day, try adjusting your programmable thermostat to 7 degrees higher from your normal temperature setting. After you return home and set the temperature back to normal, when it's time for bed, set your thermostat to 4 degrees warmer than normal.

During winter months, the U.S. Department of Energy suggests setting your normal temperature to 68 degrees. Try setting the temperature 8 degrees lower when you're out of the house or before you sleep, Energy Star said. But this advice might not be best for places like South Florida, where the average daily high temperature in winter is 77 degrees. A thermostat set closer to the outside temperature will help with savings.

That being said, comfort and health should come before any attempt to save money by adjusting your thermostat. High humidity indoors (it should stay between 40% and 60%) can lead to unhealthy mold growth that can also damage personal property. With multiple people in one household, with varying degrees of comfort, it's important to have a conversation about this, Marrero said.

While there were a few cool days between February 10 and March 13 where I turned off my air conditioning, I didn't make as significant adjustments to my thermostat as I could have because of a humidity issue in my apartment. As a result, I ended up using a few more kWh in the cooling category in February compared to the previous month. But the rest of the habits I adopted more strictly.

David King, the FPL senior energy solutions specialist who conducted my energy audit, said residents can save between 6% and 10% on their monthly bill for every two degrees raised on the thermostat during warmer months. Using ceiling fans in conjunction with a slightly higher thermostat can also help you save, he said. Ceiling fans don't cool a room, but they cool your skin.

King started the audit by checking the air conditioning efficiency with an instant thermometer. The air coming out of the coldest vent should be between 15 and 20 degrees cooler than the room temperature. His readings showed that I had a 16-degree difference, so we were in the clear.

Before I started the experiment, I changed the A/C filter. There's differing advice on how often this should be changed — every one, two or three months — but it'll depend on how quickly your filter gets dirty. I also carefully used an old toothbrush to clean the indoor A/C coils. By the looks of the gunk that came out of there, the unit was probably working overtime like a stuffed nose. While King said it didn't appear to make a significant difference in my bill, it might have prevented it from going any higher.

Next, he checked my water heater to make sure there were no leaks. If he were conducting an audit on a single-family home, he would take a look at the attic for the insulation by using a camera and infrared camera as well as pool pumps and heaters.

At the end of the visit, King sat me down to go over my usage to see if there was anything out of the ordinary.

"We wouldn't want you to micro-manage and say, 'What did I do wrong?' We're not trying to change your lifestyle, just little things that might be helping you save on your bill like moving the air conditioner up a couple of degrees," he said.

Overall, there are habits that I had already adopted before this experiment, such as taking lint out of the dryer, and others I will continue to do without second thought, such as using cold water for laundry and turning off lights before leaving a room. In the future, I do hope to make a greater impact on my bill by adjusting my thermostat, although it may be more difficult to do than the other habits.

"You have to be conscious of what's going on in your home," Marrero said.

Added Soriano: "Even if there is one person in the house who's constantly paying attention to it, it's better than nothing."

Can Florida be more energy efficient?

But energy efficiency programs provided by Florida electric utilities have room for improvement. That's according to the nonprofit SACE, which listed FPL last among the major utilities in the state when comparing the amount of energy savings their programs are capturing to their overall electric sales.

"That means that there has been less investment in energy efficiency, which means for a household that has had high energy bills and wants to do something about it, there are just less program offerings, less ways for them to access energy efficiency services for their home with the support of programs," Bradley-Wright said.

Tools to improve a home's energy efficiency can be as small as an LED lightbulb or a low-flow showerhead, or as big as a new air conditioning unit or better home insulation. Energy efficiency programs are meant to incentivize residents to invest in such changes.

FPL offers only two rebates: up to $220 for ceiling insulation and $150 for an efficient air conditioner. More recently, the utility also advertised on its website information on how to receive federal tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act for these upgrades. Other than that, FPL customers can save money by installing an "On Call" device that remotely and briefly switches off certain devices during high electricity demand.

Orlando Utilities Commission and Tampa Electric Co. were ranked by SACE as being the top energy efficiency performers in the state. Both utilities offer more options to their customers. Some offerings include rebates for installing Energy Star pool pumps, for improving duct work, providing efficiency upgrades for lower-income residents and even a $200 rebate for someone who decides to buy or lease an electric vehicle.

The rebates that FPL has are "not going to make a very meaningful difference" on the costs to make an energy efficiency investment, Bradley-Wright said. And without changes to the state's energy efficiency rule, that's unlikely to improve.

"These programs are not designed for impact. They're not designed to truly assist people in moving forward with their energy efficiency projects. And they're not designed to have much impact, which is to say, not much impact on lowering bills for the customer, which keeps the utility company's sales and profits high," Bradley-Wright said.

Residents can change their habits to affect how much energy they're using. But that's only part of it, Bradley-Wright said.

"The other half of the equation has to do with policy in the state of Florida, and the choices of the electric utility companies, because if they do not invest in energy efficiency programs for their customers, then it not only serves as a barrier to customers having the tools they need to reduce energy waste, it also drives up the cost of energy for all customers."

Hannah Morse covers consumer issues for The Palm Beach Post. Drop a line at hmorse@pbpost.com, call 561-820-4833 or follow her on Twitter @mannahhorse.