North Carolina » Save Energy & Money » Energy & Money Saving Offers » Power Manager® Energy & Money Saving Offers Home Energy House Call What is Power Manager? Power Manager� is a voluntary program that pays you for reducing your air conditioning use during times of high demand for electricity. Sign up for Power Manager or call 888.463.5022 to enroll by phone. Power Manager is currently not available in Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon or Swain counties in North Carolina.Residential time-of-use, Net Metering and Small Customer Generator customers are unable to participate in the Power Manager program. You will receive $32 in bill credits each year for your participation (an $8 credit on your electric bills from July through October). You will help preserve the environment and keep electric costs low by reducing the demand for electricity and delaying the need to build additional power plants in our region. How the Program Works

Duke Energy will install a small device near your central air conditioner's outside unit. Using this device, your air conditioner may be temporarily interrupted for a portion of each half hour during the summer when demand for electricity may reach critical levels. Your air conditioner will be turned off and on in coordination with other Power Manager customers to reduce the overall demand for electricity. Power Manager is an easy way to do something positive for yourself and the environment. To learn more, see the Power Manager FAQs. How to Get Started To sign up for Power Manager, you must: Be a Duke Energy residential customer. Own your single-family home. Have a functional central air conditioning unit with an outside compressor. There are two ways to sign up for Power Manager: Call us at 888.463.5022 to enroll by phone. Enroll online using our Power Manager Enrollment Form General Information about Power Manager

If you are enrolled in Duke Energy�s Power Manager Program, you are one of 260,000 customers who help reduce power use when it�s needed most in our communities. During these cycling times, customers often ask for more details on the program and for air conditioning tips. Here is some information you can print and keep for future reference. If you have any questions about Duke Energy�s Power Manager Program call 877.392.4848 to speak to a representative.recovery air handling unit For cycling event information, please call 800.832.3169.central ac units for sale in miami During a Power Manager cycling event, it is normal for the home to gain a few degrees in temperature.average cost of a home air conditioning unit

The temperature increase will depend on many variables — the outside temperature, the size of your air conditioner, sunlight coming through windows and the length of the cycling event. After the cycling period ends, your air conditioner may run continuously until your home reaches your thermostat temperature. Power Manager Tips to Keep Cool on a Hot Day Keeping cool and comfortable in the summer and watching your electricity usage can be a challenge. Here are some tips to help keep your home comfortable, not only during a cycling event, but during the hot days of the summer. Keep your curtains and blinds fully closed on the sunny side of the home. Especially if you know you are going to be away from home and the forecast calls for hot weather, close all your window coverings for the entire day. Many air conditioners are sized large enough to cool when the curtains are open. you close the curtains, you have �extra� cooling capacity and the air conditioner does not need to run as

often to keep your home comfortable. Minimize door traffic to the outside. The outside air is not only hot, it�s also very humid. can add extra load on your air conditioning, causing your bill to increase. Ceiling fans and other air circulating fans can improve your comfort. New energy efficient fans are best as they produce less heat. Whenever the home is closed for air conditioning, do not use the large, wholeThese fans cause inside, conditioned air to be replaced by outside, humid air. If you know your air conditioner is being cycled, postpone activities that add heat and/or extra moisture to your indoor air. Examples of heat sources are unnecessary lighting, ironing or baking. Running the clothes dryer may reduce your comfort in two ways — it produces unwanted heat and when it exhausts air to the outside, this causes the home to draw in make-up air which is warm and humid. Other sources of moisture are cooking, canning fruits and vegetables or taking a shower or bath.

Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) use much less electricity and produce much less heat than Insulate your air conditioning and heating ducts. This is a very important energy saving measure for any home where the duct-work is not inside the insulated shell. Air conditioning ducts located in an attic need the most attention. Ducts exposed to extreme attic temperatures can add 10 to 40 percent to you heating and cooling load and your costs. These ducts should be completely buried in attic insulation or wrapped with at least six inches of insulation. NC Power Manager Regulations (pdf, 17 KB) I’m going to be straightforward with you, I don’t like Thermostats that control humidity.  (Unless they are connected to a stand-alone dehumidifier)  Yes, these Thermostats will add a some level of humidity control to your house, but it will be at the expense of odd temperature management. If you set your standard thermostat to 76 degrees your AC will run so that it maintains 76 degrees. 

However, the thermostat doesn’t know the % Relative Humidity in your house.  With very tight homes you might have a house at 76 degrees inside, but if it’s 82 degrees outside & 80% Relative Humidity outside this well built home won’t have to work very hard to maintain 76 degrees (meaning the AC won’t come on alot) unless it’s in the upper 80’s or 90’s outside.  Remember that an AC unit controls temperature by running a long time so the coil gets cold and the air running past the cold coil will condense and thus dehumidify the house.  The AC unit needs to run for at least 10 minutes before it’ll control humidity by air condensing on the cold coil.  On top of this we also generate humidity in our houses by living there; cooking, showering, breathing, all these add moisture to the air inside.  There are lots of times of the year the AC simply won’t run long enough to bring down the humidity inside. Here’s how a standard HVAC system with a Humidity Controlling Thermostat works;

the humidity controlling thermostat will tell the AC that even though the inside air is 76 degrees the humidity is too high (say 65% RH), this control module will kick on the AC to control that humidity but the furnace will need to run for 10-15 minutes in order to do any moisture (humidity) removal which ends up taking the house to a lower temperature.  This is what I don’t like about the humidity control on a standard HVAC system.  You’ll walk by the thermostat and it’ll show the set point as 76 degrees but the AC is still going down to 72 degrees in order to bring down the humidity.  It’s hard for people to understand it who are living in the house.  It’ll make the house too cold just to bring the humidity down. This is why I like the stand alone dehumidifier.  It has it’s own controller that says keep the house at 50% RH.  It’s independent of the the AC unit.  The Dehumidifier doesn’t add cool air to bring down the humidity like the AC does.  It’s more of a low/slow/steady approach to controlling humidity compared to the AC unit which is like a V8 engine that only runs full ON or full OFF.