Our energy efficiency services continue to add value for home and business owners throughout our service area – bringing greater efficiency and, in some cases, incentives to make improvements.
Our energy efficiency services continue to add value for home and business owners throughout our service area – bringing greater efficiency and, in some cases, incentives to make improvements.
The number of free energy audits, inspections and other energy efficiency-related services that we perform for our customers grew to over 4,100 this year. Always undertaken at the owner’s request, these audits are in-depth inspections into the performance of a home, office, warehouse, manufacturing facility – any building that taps into our electric system.
To conduct a truly useful energy audit, our auditors are experts not only in energy efficiency, but also in construction, systems analysis, and environmental standards. Armed with this knowledge – and also with an array of tools including compressed air leak detectors and infrared thermal imaging scanners – they venture into crawlspaces and through attics, inspect manufacturing machines and HVAC systems, investigate weatherization measures, and more. All to make certain that everything is working as efficiently as possible.
Residential customers can qualify for refunds up to $500 from TVA, for EPB auditor-recommended improvements to their homes and more for commercial spaces. In 2013-2014 alone, we helped customers get $2.8 million in such incentives from TVA.
Even for customers that do apply for these refunds, making the recommended changes can help them get the maximum value for every kilowatt hour of energy. And today, energy efficiency is not only more important than ever – it is on our community’s mind, more than ever.
Not only are energy costs on the rise, but this year, we hit an all time peak energy usage during the winter’s polar vortex. Thanks to the Smart Grid, our system was more ready than ever to face the extremes of temperature, meeting demand and withstanding the falling trees, high winds, and car accidents that can cause outages. Thanks to our energy auditors, thousands of homes and businesses were ready, too.