Save Money and Help the Croton Sustainability Committee!
By: Patty Buchanan
As part of the Sustainability Committee’s efforts to win a $70,000 NYSERDA grant, Croton100 is helping to promote Con Ed’s “Grid Rewards” demand response program for this summer. If you enroll in this program, you can make money and help the Village Sustainability Committee. To maximize benefits, you need to enroll by April 30. This is a win-win, please consider enrolling before April 30.
Here’s how it works. Con Edison is offering a demand response (DR) program called “Grid Rewards” through which anyone with an electric account gets paid for merely enrolling in it. Under DR, if the electric grid is under stress this summer, a Con Ed contractor – Logical Buildings, Inc. – will contact you (by text or email, no phone calls). You may then be asked to reduce load between 4 and 8 PM – but there’s no penalty if you don’t. If you do reduce load, you get paid some more!
For most homes, just enrolling for this summer will get you between $200 and $300. Payment is made in October, by either a digital or paper check (your choice in October). To enroll, use your smartphone (iPhone or Android) or your computer. If you haven’t yet registered your electric account online at coned.com(a requirement), enrolling will show you how.
A notice to cut load may ask you to delay use of appliances (e.g., dishwasher), or use your air conditioner less, until after 8 PM. How much extra you get paid is based on how much load you drop, how often, and other factors. If we have a cool summer, you may never be asked to cut load. In most cases, the extra money will be less than the enrollment benefit, which is based on your highest hourly use last summer.
There’s no fee, no request for bank information (unless you want a digital check), no risk, and never a penalty.
Here’s another upside: enrolling gets points for the Sustainability Committee toward a $70,000 State grant. If the Sustainability Committee gets the points, it will go to further cutting the Village’s carbon emissions.
Here’s the only downside: you need to enroll by April 30. After that, the benefit drops, and you can’t enroll after May 31.
To learn more, go to sustain-croton.org and look on the right under “News and Announcements” for “Get Paid to Cut Your Electric Load!” Links to sign up, by either smartphone or PC, are in the announcement.
