Energy and Money Saving Articles

Depending on the season, increasing (in warmer months) or lowering (in cooler months) the temperature on your thermostat by 7 to 10 degrees for eight hours a day can save you up to 10% on your energy bill.

Check the temperature of your water heater. It should be set to 120 degrees.

Install aerators and low-flow faucets on fixtures and showerheads to reduce the amount of water flowing from your hot water heater. Keep showers to under five minutes to reduce hot water use.

Always wash full loads of laundry and consider using cold water instead of warm or hot water. You get the energy savings without compromising the cleanliness of your clothes.

Using fans is a great way to lower your cooling costs. Fans will only save money on your cooling if you are able to increase your thermostat temperature when the fans are on. For example, if you normally set your thermostat to 76 degrees, try setting it to 78 degrees when using a fan. Don’t forget to turn the fan off when you leave the room. Fans cool people, not spaces.

In the winter, change the direction of your ceiling fan to clockwise at a low speed to push warm air down.

Try to do laundry earlier in the day during summer months and in the evenings during winter months. During afternoons in the summer, your home tends to get warmer. Running your washer and dryer may cause your cooling system to work harder. In the winter, your home tends to get colder in the evening. Running the washer and dryer may help your heating system work a little less hard.

You will always use less electricity by turning off your lights when you are not using them.

If you really want to save on lighting, change all your incandescent and halogen bulbs to LEDs. You will pay the same amount in energy costs to keep an LED bulb on 24 hours a day as you would to keep an incandescent bulb on for just four hours.

Keep your refrigerator and freezer full. This will keep a steady temperature inside and reduce the number of times the system has to turn on.

Limit your time browsing the fridge to prevent it from draining more power to maintain the cold temperature setting.

Install a low-flow aerator on your kitchen faucet to reduce water use.

When using your dishwasher, run full loads and use the energy-saving settings.

When it is time to replace any major appliance, consider ENERGY STAR® models, which meet higher quality and energy efficiency standards.

The cost to run an appliance depends on two main things: the amount of energy the appliance uses and how much it is used.

In general, appliances that use the most energy (other than heating and cooling systems) are electric water heaters, dryers, dehumidifiers and space heaters.

With an online Duke Energy account, you can easily track your energy use by the year, month, day, hour and even down to the half hour. Simply use our website or our mobile app. This short video shows you how.

If you don’t have an online account, register here.

Our reader-friendly bill provides key information about your account at a glance. We break it all down for you here.

For many more easy ways to save energy year-round, check out these helpful articles.