Seattle’s summertime fun melted under record heat this week, forcing many who are unaccustomed to temperatures in the upper 90s, let alone an all-time-high 103 degrees, to seek relief.

The first thought is typically to seek air conditioning. My father and my mother in-law both called to see if I needed one after they saw national news reports about the Seattle heat wave.

While thankful for their concern, I politely declined. Part of that decision was recognizing that Seattle gets about two weeks of hot weather each year. I can survive two weeks of heat. The other part was understanding how to help keep the house cool without relying on air conditioning, so I could keep my electricity use and bills lower.

And thanks to THIS SPACE, I’m here to share those tips with you.

A new tool is about to become available online for Seattle area residents that will help us track and reduce our energy usage.

The free application is called Hohm – a mashup of the words home and ohm, which is a measurement of electrical resistance.

The application was built by a little software company on the east side called Microsoft. OK, they’re not little anymore, but they are mostly local. The power for this tool comes from its ability to link up with energy use data from local utilities and crunch it into suggestions for saving energy and money, which is what THIS SPACE is all about.

Seattle City Light (which provides this author’s paycheck) and Puget Sound Energy are among the first four utilities in the country to partner with Microsoft to provide this service to their customers.

When a person creates a Hohm account he or she can follow a link to connect the tool to their energy provider by answering three security questions. The utility will then transmit usage data to Microsoft for display and analysis by Hohm. A user also can create a profile of their home with information such as the type of heating and appliances that are in use.

Hohm shows electricity and natural gas usage over time along with temperature comparisons. It makes comparisons against similar homes in the surrounding area, including what your most energy-efficient neighbors are doing to keep their bills low.

Then comes the really cool part.

Using the energy data, the home profile information and other factors, Hohm will generate personalized recommendations for cutting your energy consumption along with an estimate of how much money you could save by making that change. The recommendations include links to rebates and other incentive programs from your local utility.

The data crunching to generate those recommendations is based, in part, on complex algorithms and data developed by Lawrence Berkeley Labs and the Department of Energy.

One person might find out how much she could save by switching her light bulbs to compact fluorescents. Another might learn how much that spare fridge in the basement is costing him and how he can score a $30 rebate for recycling it.

While those energy-saving tips might sound familiar, linking them to the projected savings for a particular person’s home could be enough of an extra nudge to take a person from interested observer to actively making energy efficiency improvements.

So this week’s ONE THING that you can do to cut down your energy consumption and keep a few more dollars in your bank account is to check out Hohm. Its Beta version release is expected any day.

You can get more information at www.microsoft-hohm.com or www.seattle.gov/light/conserve/hohm. At the Hohm site you can also sign up for a notice from Microsoft when they release the Beta.

I look forward to hearing from any readers that would like to share their experiences with the new tool. More...