By Mariah Olson, Chinook Book Sustainable Business Accounts Manager

It's getting close to that magic moment that happens once a year when people all across the world feel compelled by loose tradition to renew their commitment to being healthier and happier. Most of these promises inevitably include something to do with diet and exercise, that simple but elusive combination of factors that so many of us can't seem to get right on a regular basis. More...

When Washington lawmakers approved a set of incentives in 2005 for producing electricity from the solar power, they hoped to encourage residents to install solar panels and recruit businesses to build them in the Evergreen State.

Four years later, we are seeing slow, but steady and growing progress.

Under the state's incentive program, anyone who installs a solar panel and a meter that records its production gets a double payoff. First, the electricity it produces lowers the amount you need to buy from your utility. Then, you also earn at least 12 cents for every kilowatt-hour of energy the panel generates.

It’s a generous incentive.

The minimum production incentive alone is nearly double what my employer, Seattle City Light, charges its residential customers. Combined with the savings from not needing to buy that electricity, the minimum payback is about 18 cents per kilowatt-hour.

But wait, it gets even better and THIS SPACE is here to tell you why. More...

Every now and then you run across a situation where instinct tells you to zig when you really ought to zag.

For saving electricity and keeping a few more dollars in your bank account, THIS SPACE is about to bend your mind around the idea of using electricity to save it.

This week’s ONE THING you can do to conserve energy is to try online billing for your utility bills and any other payments you need to make. The switch will increase your time on the computer, which would seem to increase your energy consumption, but this is a situation where one step back can lead to two or three steps forward.

Here’s why. More...

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.

Portable room air conditioners – the little boxes that look like R2D2 from Star Wars – generally use between 900 and 1,400 watts.  That means they cost about 8 cents an hour to run at the lowest-in-the-country rates offered by my employer, Seattle City Light.  Use them for 12 hours a day for a month and that will add up to about $34 per month. Central air conditioning uses much more electricity.  A unit that uses 3,500 watts will cost about $100 per month at 12 hours per day.

If you can keep the house cool enough to get by with a window fan, you can significantly reduce your costs. A window fan costs about $1.40 a month to run for the same amount of time.

How then, do you beat the heat without the A/C?

For starters, try to avoid building a box of hot air inside your house. Eat cool meals like sandwiches, salads and fruit instead of cooking with the stove. If you really want a hot meal, grill outside. And wait until evening to run the washing machine, dryer or dishwasher.

Next, use shading and ventilation.

Keep interior shades closed on the windows with direct sunlight. Exterior shades offer even more relief. I installed one on the west side of my house to cover the sliding glass door and have another for the picture window.

Open windows and doors to create cross ventilation then turn on a fan or two. You don’t want to spin hot air around inside your home. You want to move it outside and replace it with cooler air, even if cooler means 80 degrees.

Another idea is to take advantage of the insulation provided by the ground. If you’ve got a basement like I do, you learn fast that it’s typically the coolest room in the house during the summer. Spend more time there when it’s hot outside.

If you’ve got air conditioning, don’t sweat it. I understand the comfort of a climate controlled room and excessive temperatures can create health problems, including heat stress and heat exhaustion.

But even if you turn to air conditioning for some extra relief, these tips will help you conserve electricity because your A/C unit won’t have to work as hard to bring the temperature down.

So this week’s ONE THING you can do to conserve electricity and keep a little more money in your bank account is to try to keep cool without the air conditioning, or at least use the A/C a little less.

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Gear up for another hot weekend in the Puget Sound! Plan a dip in the lake or an afternoon running through the International Fountain at the Seattle Center and you likely won't be disappointed. However, if you're looking for a bit more structure, take a look at one of the three FREE classes that are scheduled for the week ahead, giving you inspiration to take on a home or yard project of your own!

What will you be doing this week?

Image Credit: mikelehen/Creative Commons

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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...

I want to add the phrase “everyday cycling” to our language. I first heard this when I was a guest on the KBOO Bike Show in Portland. Before the show, I head co-host Tori Bortman use everyday cycling, and being the word geek that I am, I asked about the nuances of her phrase. A discussion ensued, and I am now convinced that everyday cycling needs to be part of our language.

There is a sizable group of people who fall under the term everyday cycling, myself included, but my riding habits are usually described as bike commuting. Until now.

Image used with permission of metrofiets.com. Pictured: Ella Ross and Phillip Ross. Picture taken by Maile Leithea. Check out the Metrofiets photostream! More...

After an extended, gray winter, Seattle is now enjoying the kind of summer that reminds us why we live here.

As the long-awaited sunshine pulls us from our fleece cocoons and recharges our vitamin D levels, THIS SPACE is here to remind you that sunshine also offers one of the simplest, low-investment opportunities for saving electricity -- the solar clothes dryer. You might recognize this energy-efficient technology better as a clothesline.

Hanging clothes to dry used to be a commonplace event, but largely disappeared with the arrival of affordable, convenient appliances.

That convenience comes with a cost, which you can turn into a savings. More...

The Obama Administration’s plan to stimulate our country’s sagging economy with a massive infusion of grants, tax breaks and other federal spending includes a boost for people who want to save energy.
The stimulus bill approved by Congress earlier this year contains a federal tax credit for consumers who add insulation, reflective roofing or energy-efficient windows, doors or heating systems. Those who take advantage of the tax credit can have the federal government pay for up to 30 percent of those energy-cutting home improvements.
Improvements made in 2009 and 2010 qualify for the tax credit. The most a person can receive is $1,500, which is 30 percent of a $5,000 purchase.
Other equipment is eligible for the tax credit without any cap on the amount. This includes solar energy panels, solar hot water systems, geothermal heat pumps, small wind systems or fuel cells. That equipment must be installed by 2016 to qualify.
These tax credits come on top of incentives that are already being offered by electric and gas utilities.
In a previous column, THIS SPACE described the $1,200 discount my employer, Seattle City Light, and Puget Sound Energy are providing on ductless heat pumps. Among the other incentives are rebates for Energy Star water heaters, high-efficiency air-source heat pumps and insulation.
Each of these steps has the potential to significantly reduce your energy consumption and lower your monthly bills. So if you’ve ever thought about replacing your leaky, single-pane windows, rattling furnace or rusty water heater, there’s no time like now.
The ONE THING you can do this week to save energy and keep some extra money in your bank account is to investigate the incentives available from your utility and the federal government then find a qualified company to help you install some energy-efficient upgrades. Many installers are looking for work too, which means a little negotiating could save you even more.
You’ll appreciate the increased comfort in your home and the smaller energy bills for years to come. More...

Anyone who can relate to the recent cell phone commercial about “butt dialing” knows how our dependence on technology can sometimes get in the way of our best intentions.

Beyond the inconvenience of dialing or answering some unintended calls, there’s an energy cost as well. More...