Empower’s B.O.L.T. Technology

Making Sure We Deliver You the Right Product

 
You may have received a letter from us that shows a graph like this:

This graph says a lot about how your home is using energy, and while we’ve been able to illustrate a home’s energy use relative to others in the area, the science behind it is critical to making sure Empower is offering the right products to homeowners that need them the most.

What the Data Says

The black line is “your house” while the green line represents an energy efficient home in your area. The graph above is an example of a home in desperate need of our energy efficiency package. What the graph shows is this:

1. Left hand side of the graph – When it’s cold outside, this house is using a lot of natural gas to keep the home warm, way more than the average home in the area. This could be from a lack of insulation, leaky walls and windows, or an inefficient furnace.
2. Middle of the graph – Where the lines move from flat to an upward trajectory either to the right or left tells us when heating and cooling systems are kicking on. As you can see, this house’s furnace and air conditioning units are turning on sooner than they should relative to homes in the area. So this homeowner is tapping into his or her energy needs earlier than the average home.
3. Height of the flat middle line  – This tells us about how much everyday energy-use occurs in the home – things like your dishwasher, lighting, game systems, etc. Since the height of the flat portion for the house is higher than the line for the average, it tells us that the everyday use of items in the home are higher than others in the area. LED light bulbs are an easy and low cost method of reducing this component of energy use.

The Empower Home Energy Tune-Up – A Data Driven Package

Energy companies have always measured their customers’ energy use. But not many look at the data to help the customer with the kind of productive eye Empower does. When Athens County selected Empower as the area’s official energy services provider, they were interested in us being able to deliver a package that has the highest potential energy savings/dollar savings benefits at the lowest possible cost to the homeowner. In order to develop this low cost/high impact energy efficiency package, we looked at how homes “act” relative to outside temperature. Those homes that are using more energy to heat or cool tell us with a high degree of certainty that insulation and air sealing are the culprits of a home using energy inefficiently.
So we created the Empower Home Energy Tune- Up to address this very problem:

• Attic/crawl space insulation
• Air sealing of the home from the outside elements
• LED light bulbs
• ecobee smart thermostat

How Data Will Determine New Product and Service Offerings

The Empower Home Energy Tune-Up is just one package that Empower is delivering to homeowners throughout your area, and all across Ohio. But we’re looking at the data constantly to determine new offerings. Again, our goal as a company to deliver products and services that save homeowners money on their energy bills. And we intend on delivering the lowest cost methods of achieving this. So products or services like an HVAC tune-up and technologies to help appliances use less energy and energy are on our horizon, and will be available to homeowners that would benefit most from these new offerings.