Despite the exceptionally warm December and the days getting longer, lower temperatures are forecasted for the coming months, when energy costs will be highest of the year for most of us.

Luckily, we have several simple ways to use energy more efficiently, conserve energy, and save money. These actions result in reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, an added benefit!

Energy efficiency is using less energy to do the same function. One simple way to become more energy efficient is to change your lighting from incandescent bulbs to LED or other bulbs with energy star ratings (energystar.gov). Switching from natural gas or propane heaters to modern cold-climate air-sourced heat pumps is another way. The relatively new hybrid heat pump water heaters use 60-75% less energy than the conventional electrical resistance water heaters, saving $300-600/year.

King County’s Energize program (tinyurl.com/mryb3tum) helps eligible homeowners, renters, and community organizations access energy-efficient low- or no-cost heat pumps and other upgrades. This year’s program is for non-government-owned community buildings, which is not that relevant to Vashon Island.

Alternatively, PSE’s Efficiency Boost program (tinyurl.com/mryb3tum) offers rebates on selected energy-efficient upgrades to income-qualified customers.

Weatherization is the process of protecting your entire home so that the air you heat stays inside your home, where and when you want it, primarily through insulation and sealing air leaks with weatherstrips and other means. The best actions involve sealing attic penetrations and insulating beneath the floors above crawlspaces.

PSE’s Home Weatherization Assistance program (tinyurl.com/mhjn43u7) is a partnership with federal and state funding sources that can assess your home and provide free, whole-home upgrades to help lower your monthly energy bill for income-qualified customers (gross income less than approx. $5,000-8,000/month for King County household of 2). PSE offers weatherization rebates for everyone and more for income-qualified households.

Energy conservation is changing the way you do things to use less energy-as simple as remembering to turn off the lights when you leave a room.

Other ways to conserve energy include heating only occupied rooms and unplugging some electronics. Even when they are turned off, many TVs, battery chargers and other devices can still use energy.

A simple solution is to plug these devices into a power strip. When you turn the power strip off, you “unplug” everything attached. You can also borrow VT1999 (tinyurl.com/8xt25bkw) from the Vashon Tool Library to monitor energy use of any device using the Kill-A-Watt EZ. You can lower your water heater temperature to 120°F, which will save money and keep water hot enough for showers and cleaning dishes.

When doing laundry, wash with cold water and avoid over-drying your clothes. Make sure air vents are not blocked with drapes and furniture.

You can set your thermostat to 68-70°F during the day and 65-68°F at night and follow Jimmy Carter’s advice of wearing a sweater or jumper inside. The new smart thermostats are programmable and make this adjustment very simple. It is also best to slowly raise the thermostat temperature if you are cold as rapid heating uses more energy.

And in the future, community-scale projects are particularly relevant to our isolated island setting, including distributed community solar with battery installations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while increasing island resilience and to save money, community bulk purchasing of heat pumps and insulation.

And although it saves carbon emissions year-round, transitioning from internal combustion engines (ICE) to electric saves the 75% of generated heat energy that is mostly wasted and not used to move the vehicle. So the bottom line is — The greenest kilowatt-hour is the one you don’t use, especially in winter— seal first, insulate well, efficiently electrify and heat or illuminate only what you need.

The cost of many of these improvements are paid for in energy savings in a few years and, by doing them, you positively impact the environment. Stay tuned for more resources from our Vashon Climate Action Planning team.

Steve Bergman is a geologist, Zero Waste Vashon board member, Whole Vashon Project advisor and member of the Vashon Climate Action Planning Team.