With consumers facing higher electric bills, the number of Chattanoogans getting energy audits to cut their electricity use more than doubled last year.
Lured by bigger tax breaks and more consumer awareness of the benefits of energy efficiency, nearly 2,300 Chattanooga residents and businesses took advantage of EPB energy inspections to identify ways to cut their electricity consumption in 2010.
Across the Tennessee Valley, the number of electricity users asking for help cutting their energy consumption also is running nearly twice the year-ago rate, TVA spokesman Mike Bradley said Monday. TVA is on pace to provide energy audits and advice to more than 18,000 residential customers this year, he said.
“We’ve had some extreme weather with a hotter-than-normal summer and a colder winter and that, combined with some of the incentives being offered for energy improvements, is causing a lot more people to take a closer look at ways to be more efficient,” Bradley said.
Last month was the coldest December in Georgia in the 115 years of National Weather Service records.