Weathering Winter Weather- Cold Weather Tips to Help You Conserve Energy & Stay Safe

With record low temperatures on the way this weekend, Florida utilities are asking customers to conserve energy during the coldest times of the day. 

While we remain confident in our electric grid and our teams are actively monitoring conditions around the clock, extreme cold causes energy use to rise sharply as heating systems work harder across the state.  

That’s where you come in: Conserving energy during these peak hours helps reduce added strain on the system and helps keep your bill lower.

Energy demand is expected to be highest during the early morning hours, when many households are waking up and turning on the heat at the same time. We’re asking everyone to take a few impactful steps to conserve energy during the cold snap – especially Sunday morning and Monday morning, when demand is forecast to be at its highest. 

Conservation Tips For Your Home

• Choose a comfortable thermostat setting and lower it slightly. Warming a home in cold weather requires much more energy than cooling during summer months. Experts recommend setting thermostats around 68 degrees, but even a two-degree reduction can make a difference when done collectively.
• Leaving your thermostat at the lowest comfortable setting. Fluctuating temperatures cause heating systems to work harder, driving up demand. 
• Keeping home heat pumps in normal mode rather than emergency heat. The emergency setting uses much more electricity and significantly increases demand. 
• Waiting until later in the day to use major appliances like washers, dryers, and dishwashers. These appliances use hot water and heat, spiking demand. 
• Taking shorter showers. Hot water heaters use significant amounts of energy to heat and reheat water throughout the day. 
• Charging EVs later in the day. When many customers charge their EVs at once, it adds extra demand to the electric grid. 

Conservation Tips for Your Business

• Pre-warm your space before the morning rush. Warm buildings earlier than normal – overnight or very early in the morning – and then reduce or pause your heating during peak morning hours.
• Shift high-demand tasks to off-peak times, such as laundry, production runs, dishwashing and charging fleets or equipment.
• Stagger start-up of large HVAC units, industrial and kitchen equipment, compressors, pumps and motors. Even a 15 or 30-minute delay makes a difference.
• Stagger employee arrival times if possible. Encourage rotating start times for employees, such as a 9 a.m. start instead of 8 a.m.

Safety Tips

• Keep space heaters off carpet, walls and furniture.
• Plug directly into a wall outlet to reduce overheating and fire risk from extension cords or power strips. Turn off and unplug when not in use.
• When using your fireplace, make sure the flue is open, use a safety screen and never leave a fire or smoldering embers unattended.
• Never tuck in electric blankets – trapped heat and poor ventilation can cause overheating and become a fire hazard. 
• Like space heaters, plug blankets directly into the wall.  Unplug before falling asleep and when not in use.
• Never use your stove, oven or grill to heat your home. Not only is this a fire and burn hazard, but dangerous gases could be emitted into your home.
• Cover exposed water pipes and spigots. 
• If you live in a house, allow a trickle of water to flow through exposed pipes or faucets that share an exterior wall to prevent the water inside from freezing.
• Insulate pipes connected to solar water heating systems to prevent freezing. 

Thank you for doing your part to help during this historic arctic blast. As always, please continue to stay safe during cold weather.