Orangeville Energy Challenge online calculator launched

Take the Orangeville Energy Challenge and see if you can beat the Orangeville benchmark for residential energy consumption!

The Energy Sub-Committee of the Town of Orangeville's Sustainability Action Team has created an online Energy Challenge on the Town of Orangeville website - www.orangeville.ca. The idea is to make it possible for you to plug your household's energy consumption numbers (for one year) into a form that has a built-in calculation and in a few seconds you can see how your household compares in electricity and natural gas consumption compared to the Orangeville average, based on the type of house in which you live. Although there are other forms of energy, the calculator will focus on electricity and natural gas which the majority of Orangeville residents use.

To participate in this new initiative you collect your energy data for 2007 and fill out the Orangeville Energy Challenge calculator on the Town of Orangeville website. It's quick, easy, and free. You just provide your residential street name, type of dwelling, energy numbers, and let the calculator give you an instant response to see if you beat the benchmark - and there are tips on how to conserve even more to help the environment and reduce your energy costs.

Energy Sub-Committee member Rob Strang, who brought the idea forward, is eager to see area residents take the challenge. "The calculator will let people know how their energy consumption compares to the rest of Orangeville. It will give us an idea as to how much room we have for improvement, how much energy and money we can save, just by doing what others are doing. For those leading the pack in energy conservation it will acknowledge their success and inspire people to set higher targets for savings. When it comes to energy conservation, it tells you how you're doing and what is achievable."

The Town, through the Sustainability Action Team, has partnered with Orangeville Hydro and Reduce the Juice on this initiative to promote energy conservation in Orangeville. The benchmark data is obtained from Orangeville Hydro and Enbridge and the calculator considers the intensity of your energy use with formulas from the Office of Energy Efficiency of Natural Resources Canada.

Perhaps you can reduce your costs and save the environment a little bit at a time -- and you can see how you measure up each year to the Orangeville benchmark for both electricity and natural gas use.

Five of the top ways to conserve energy:

• Turn your air conditioners up by 2 degrees
• Hang your clothes out to dry
• Wash your clothes in cold water
• Get rid of the second fridge or second freezer
• Turn off lights when you're not going to be in a room and change to CFL light bulbs

The Orangeville Energy Challenge is one of many events planned in Orangeville as part of Energy Conservation Week. For a list of the week's events visit the Town of Orangeville website and click on the Sustainability Action Team banner. For more information on energy conservation and events across the province visit http://www.energyconservationweek.ca/.

• Posted: Saturday, May 31, 2008
• From: Council