Evolve Energy Makes Energy Management Automatic in Texas with New AI-Based Platform

With the Coronavirus crisis, we see more and more of our customers continuing to work from home for extended time periods - and staying home means using more electricity. Many companies are now reporting that they do not plan to re-open offices until 2021, and some companies have even made working from home permanent. At Evolve Energy, our goal is always to help use less electricity and save money wherever you can. Here are 15 tips to help you save money while spending more time at home. Sync your smart thermostat with the Evolve Energy app: When you do this, we will automatically adjust your AC usage around price changes, saving you money in the long run. Adjust your cooling schedule: Even turning up the temperature a degree or two can make a big difference with how much you spend on electricity. Switch your fan direction: Most ceiling fans have a switch that changes the direction they spin. In the summer, make sure you run the fan counterclockwise so it blows air down. This can allow you to get by with turning up the thermostat a couple of degrees and stay cool while saving costs on electricity. Time washing and drying: These appliances use a lot of electricity. Check the Evolve app electricity price forecast and find the lowest priced time of the day to wash and dry your clothes. Mornings are typically best. Try washing your clothes using cold water: Your water heater uses quite a bit of electricity every day, using cold water can cut down on the electricity used to keep hot water on hand for your washing machine, allowing you to save a bit more on electricity costs - plus it is more gentle on your clothes. Lower the temperature on your water heater: If your water heater is set above 120°, try lowering the temperature a bit. Higher temperatures use more energy to keep the water on hand at the right temperature when you need it. Clean the lint trap: Cleaning the lint trap after every load on your clothes dryer can help you save more and electricity, by allowing your dryer to operate more efficiently. Run full loads of dishes and laundry: Fuller loads = less loads. Less loads = less electricity use. If you’re able to get more from the cycles you’re already running for both the dishwasher and your clothes washer / dryer, you are using less energy and intern save money. Change your AC filters: Replacing your AC filters regularly can help increase the efficiency of your HVAC system and will save you money on your electricity costs. Use energy efficient lightbulbs: LED bulbs do cost more to buy, but they cut down on electricity cost because they are more efficient - plus they last a really long time! If you are in Dallas or Houston, send us a message and we will share a link with you for discount prices on LED lightbulbs. Try using a toaster oven: Electric ovens take a ton of power to heat up. A small toaster oven requires substantially less electricity than a large conventional oven and puts out much less heat into your home, allowing you to use less electricity to keep your home cool. Grill outside: The grill and summertime go hand in hand, and also keep your house cool instead of cooking inside. Try a smart plug: An inexpensive smart plug can be used to turn devices on and off and can easily be scheduled to match your daily routine. Automatically turning things on and off with a smart plug eliminates forgetting to do so manually, and will reduce your electricity consumption. Track your usage: Use the Evolve Energy app to track when and how you use electricity to help you become more aware of your usage, allowing you to make additional changes to help you save on energy costs. Turn on push notifications: Make sure you have push notifications enabled in the Evolve app AND in your phone settings. Doing so, you will receive notifications when prices are higher to help you use less electricity during those time periods. Need help setting this up? Just give us a call or chat with us on our website - we’re here to help. Want even more money saving tips? Check out our April blog post here .

A smart thermostat is not necessary to save money as an Evolve Energy customer. When you switch to us you get the really low wholesale electricity rate, which is typically only available to the largest factories and businesses. This low rate is significantly cheaper than typical retail electricity rates offered by many of our competitors like Reliant and TXU. In fact, just switching to wholesale electricity can save you up to 20% off of electricity bill, compared to the average green energy plan. If you do have a smart thermostat, syncing it with the Evolve Energy app can save you even more. Combined with the wholesale electricity rates, customers who enable their smart thermostat and other devices with us, can save up to 40% off of their electricity costs. This works by automating your electricity usage around price changes. Wholesale electricity prices change every five minutes on the wholesale market. When these prices vary, we can simply pause cooling your home if the cost for electricity exceeds an amount that you select - allowing you to avoid high cost price “spikes” and only using electricity when it is cheap. By doing this, you are automating your smart thermostat to save money off of your electricity costs automatically. Did you know, typically during the summer 90% of the average Texans electricity bill is from AC use? But automating your smart thermostat to save you money when prices go high - you are also substantially increasing your ability to save money during the hottest summer months. No smart thermostat? No problem. If you are in Houston or Dallas you can click one of the links below to save $50 off the price of a smart thermostat. 

We’ve all heard the phrase there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The same adage is true when looking at electricity rates. There’s no such thing as free nights, or free weekends - consumers ultimately pay for them one way or the other. Many companies throughout Texas offer special electricity plans that include “your highest usage day is free,” or “free nights,” or free weekends.” At first these may seem like a good deal since most residential electricity consumption occurs during nights and weekends, when we are home (unless you are working from home like most of us are right now). Spoiler alert - many times these plans are actually very expensive! Here’s where things get interesting… nights and weekends are often the same times that wholesale electricity rates are super low. In fact, Houston Evolve Energy customers have benefited from 30+ free intervals this month alone. On average, Evolve customers pay less than two cents per kilowatt hour for their electricity at night. Let’s look at a few popular night and weekend plans, first TXU’s “Free nights, and solar days” plan. After signing a 12 month contract your rate comes to a whopping 17.2 cents per kilowatt hour. Unhappy with that rate after signing up? It’ll cost you $150 to pay their cancellation fee. Hopping on the free nights bandwagon, Direct Energy offers a free nights plan with 12 hours of free electricity, and charges 16.9 cents per kilowatt hour daily between 9 AM and 9 PM. We decided to also take a look at Reliant’s most recent offering, “pick your free electricity,” giving you the option to pick a plan that’s right for your home, choose from: “truly free weekends, truly free nights, truly free seven days” and plenty of other confusing plans made to look like they will help you save on electricity costs. However, the Electricity Fact label again tells the truth. The Reliant “truly free nights 12 plan,” offers a whopping daytime rate of almost 20.9 cents per kWh after signing a 12 month contract. Even Houston Chronicle wrote an article about Reliant’s free nights plan, “When free really means more expensive.” citing how expensive the electricity rates were associated with one of their older plans. Read the article here . With Evolve Energy, you get 100% renewable energy, and super low wholesale rates combined with the ability to truly decrease your carbon footprint - plus no contracts or cancellation fees. Don’t get stuck in a lengthy contract with high fixed rates - choose Evolve Energy, and save.

At Evolve Energy, it has always been our goal to make it easy to care for the environment. We do this by empowering our customers to make a direct impact on their carbon footprint using next-generation technology, all while saving money on electricity. Evolve Energy is the only electricity company that gives our customers real-time visibility into the type of electricity that is powering their homes at any given moment, by showing the current carbon density of the grid in their area.

Evolve Energy customers can save up to 40% off of their electricity costs just by unlocking the power of their smarthome combined with wholesale electricity rates. Read below to learn a few additional tips on how to shave additional costs off of your electricity bill. Right now many of our customers are working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Don't worry, more time at home does not have to mean higher electricity usage and ultimately higher utility bills. We are here to help you combat that, while everyone is working from home. Adjusting the thermostat up just a couple of degrees can make a huge difference on the amount of excess energy that is used to cool your home. Also using a ceiling fans, and circulating air throughout your house can also help to save on energy cooling costs, especially as temperatures rise across Texas. Keep in mind, that our app already decreases your electricity use when prices spike - helping you to save even more if you connect your smart thermostat to our app. Spending more time at home also means using the kitchen more and increasing use of your dishwasher. Check to see if your dishwasher has an energy saving mode to help you cut energy costs even further. Now that the weather is nice, grilling outside uses less energy than an electric range or oven - and doesn’t heat the house up, a win-win! Microwaves, crock pots, and pressure cookers also typically use less electricity to cook a meal then an electric powered range or oven. Looking for more great tips? The Department of Energy has put together this infographic and the below ten tips a few years ago to help you save even more.