Blog Archive

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

New Features For Glasgow-ky.com!!!

We hope you have taken a moment and read the blog post about how to help Glasgow save money this summer. If not, please click here.

Have you noticed the new graphic on www.glasgow-ky.com near the real-time City electric usage graph?

We are working to try to predict when that highest reading might be and inform all of our customers, asking for your help in holding the energy usage down just for those days when we think the peak hour might occur, rather than every afternoon. You will see various notifications posted on Facebook, Twitter, The Weather Channel crawl, cable advertisements and any other format we can think of to get the message out to all of our customers. You will likely see this occur about once each week, but the remaining days in the week will be open for you to use electricity as you desire.

For those of you wondering just what this means, here are the descriptions:

  • Load Level Green - This is the standard level for the Glasgow EPB. It means that no peak electric demand is expected and no action is being requested of the EPB customers.
  • Load Level Blue - This indicates an anticipated higher electric usage day due to weather or system conditions. EPB customers are requested to limit usage of any unnecessary electric equipment and appliances such as washers, dryers, and dishwashers, and raise the thermostat two degrees between the hours of noon to 8 pm.
  • Load Level Red - This indicates an extreme condition due to weather or system conditions. All EPB electric customers are asked to put extreme conservation practices into place from noon to 8 pm. Please curtail any unnecessary electric usage and raise the thermostat to at least 78 degrees, if at all possible.

On Wednesday, June 12, we will put this new system into action, with a Load Level Blue condition. With temperatures predicted for the low to mid-90's, we anticipate that we may set a new peak for the month. (Our peak this month is shown as the orange horizontal line on the graph, and was set on June 5 at 2:00 pm.) Again, as we described in the earlier blog post, our bill from TVA is partially based on this peak, so it pays our customers to keep this peak as low as possible. We're asking for each of our customers' help - whether residential or business. We need everyone's assistance between the hours of noon - 8 pm. Simply think before you turn on that appliance, lower that thermostat or push the start button on that electric powered piece of equipment. Just by making some changes in the way we use our electricity, we can create a savings for all of our customers!

We are counting on each of you to help in our efforts to hold the costs down for the entire community. With just a few minor changes for just a few hours each week, we can make an impact!

Monday, June 3, 2013

We Have a Plan for Saving Glasgow Money



During the past couple of years you have heard us talk about Summer and Winter peak times for electricity use.  We have asked you to curtail your electric usage in the months of June through September during the time frame of noon – 8 pm each Monday through Friday.  Well, this year, we are going to approach our efforts to save money for our customers in a different way.



We purchase all of our power from TVA, and each month they send us the bill for that usage. A large portion of that bill is based upon the maximum, or peak, energy used by our customers during one hour of each month.  Yes, you read that right, the bill from TVA isn’t just based upon the total amount of energy used in Glasgow, but also on the highest one hour reading they see during the month.  So, you can see how important it is for our community to keep that highest reading as low as possible.



We are working to try to predict when that highest reading might be and inform all of our customers, asking for your help in holding the energy usage down just for those days when we think the peak hour might occur, rather than every afternoon.  You will see various notifications posted on Facebook, Twitter, The Weather Channel crawl, cable advertisements and any other format we can think of to get the message out to all of our customers.  You will likely see this occur about once each week, but the remaining days in the week will be open for you to use electricity as you desire. 



You can always see how we are doing in trying to stay below our peak by going to www.glasgow-ky.com to see the city electric demand graph on the right hand side of the page.  The red line represents today’s usage, and the orange straight line represents our peak.  When you start seeing the red line approaching that orange straight line, we will ask for your help to control the maximum usage. 



If you are at home, just refraining from using your washer, dryer, or electric range can make a big impact.  For an even greater impact, if you have an electric hot water heater, please refrain from using hot water during that time.  Of course the ultimate impact will be to raise your thermostat just a few degrees so that your air conditioning doesn’t kick on.  If you are at your place of work, again, adjusting the thermostat a few degrees, and turning off lights in unused areas can make a difference. 



We are counting on each of you to help in our efforts to hold the costs down for the entire community.  With just a few minor changes for just a few hours each week, we can make an impact!