Rate payers can expect to see their power bills decrease in the coming weeks, but that has more to do with the weather than the cost of electricity.
Magnolia Electric Power member services director Lucy Shell discussed energy efficiency with the McComb Exchange Club last week.
“Outside temperatures do affect your electric bill,” she said. “You will see a rise and a fall.”
December, January and February are peak times, while March, April and May generally see less power usage before peaking again in the summer, she said.
Shell gave several tips on how to keep electric bills more reasonable.
In order to keep the winter chill away and some money in the bank account, set the thermostat to 68 degrees she said, adding that heating and cooling accounts for about half of a home’s power usage.
Water heaters are the second-biggest user of electricity in a typical household, accounting for about 14% of monthly usage, on average, she said, and washers and dryers are third.
“There are things you can do in your house” to lower bills, she said.
One way to boost energy efficiency is to swap incandescent light bulbs with LEDs. Shell gave a demonstration using a board with two sets of lightbulbs, six LEDs and six incandescents, that were hooked up to their own meters. She had a club member flick a switch just long enough to show that the LEDs made the meter spin much slower.
Shell said smart meters installed throughout the electric cooperative’s grid allows Magnolia Electric officials to measure electricity usages each month.
She said rate payers can take a look at their meter to determine usage as well, but they are advised to look but don’t touch.
“If you want to read your meter, please do, but for safety reasons, please don’t touch your meter,” she said. “You may not realize you’re using 50 kilowatts on one day, 25 on the next and 75 on the next.”
People who fall behind on bill payments can make arrangements for a payment plan, she said.
“We can work with them. We’re not cruel and heartless,” Shell said.
Shell also promoted the use of the Smarthub app, which allows rate payers to keep up with power usage, report outages, view outage maps and pay bills.
“You can go in there and look at your daily usage,” she said. “We try to push people toward this.”
She said Magnolia Electric buys power from Cooperative Energy, which uses a diverse mix of sources to generate power. More gas is being used in much of the grid’s power generation, but the mix also includes coal, wind, hydroelectric and nuclear, which is the cheapest source of electricity.
Turning to other topics, Magnolia Electric has revived its youth leadership program for high school juniors in its service area, which had been on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic.
And Magnolia Electric officials are starting to emerge more in the public after two years of battening down the headquarters on Highway 98 west of Summit and mostly keeping to themselves to avoid the risk of an outbreak among its employees, Shell said.
The cooperative’s manager, Darrell Smith “has been very concerned about keeping our employees well so we can keep the power on,” she said.
