Being good stewards of the environment is everyone's responsibility and working together, we all can do our part.

Webster defines efficient as (1) being or involving the immediate agent in producing an effect

As there are more and more uses for electricity so everyone needs to learn to use it efficiently. Check out the links above to learn you how you can use electricity efficiently.

Most people rely on electricity to be there when they need it. Using it efficiently, doesn't affect it being there, but it does affect being "productive without waste." As you learn more, LP&L hopes you'll learn how you can use electricity efficiently, to produce everyone's desired effects, lessoning pollution and lessoning their electric bill.

The greatest amount of pollution from electric plants is created when electricity use climbs in the Summer between the hours of 3pm to 7pm. During that time electric companies have to run older, less efficient and more polluting equipment to meet the highest demands for electricity. So to be efficient, lesson the amount of electricity you use between 3pm and 7pm in the Summer.

To encourage the efficient use of electricity, most electric companies have higher electric rates in the Summer.

What You Can Do

1. Conserve Energy During Peak Summer Months. By practicing energy conservation, you can help the environment, especially during the peak electricity usage times from 3pm to 7pm. During these peak times, electric companies have to run older generation units with fewer pollution controls to create the electricity to meet the higher demands.

2. Become Smarter or Efficient With Your Electricity Use. Here are some great ideas to get your started.

• replace your heating and air-conditioning filters every 3 months and check them every month
• install programmable thermostats to better regulate heating and cooling when no one is in the building and/or room
• replace your incandescent light bulbs with florescent and/or LED light bulbs.
• use EPA Energy Star rated products
• try an Energy Efficiency Audit by clicking on the link above

3. Renewable Electricity Generation

LP&L electric customers ask us about their options of installing renewable electric generation facilities on their property and LP&L’s does not promote nor discourage our customers from doing this. In the electricity industry we call this type of electricity generation distributed power systems and while there are many worthy systems available, there are many more that may not be so worthy depending on how you define worth. If our customers chose to install electric generation systems on their property they need to consider if they will use all the power they generate, if they will store it, or if they will control when or how much they will generate.

Some power companies allow their customers to sell excess power they generate back to the company in what the electric industry calls net metering.  In order for LP&L to purchase excess energy from our customers, LP&L would have to have net metering in our Electric Rates and at this time net metering is not addressed in the tariff.


What LP&L Is Doing

LP&L is increasing the amount of electricity we purchase for our customers from renewable generation sources.  Currently, the electricity we purchase for our customers comes from one the nation's largest generators of wind energy. Each year between 5% and 10% of the electricity LP&L provides to our customers come from wind generation sources located in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico.