Cooking Up Energy Savings this Holiday Season

The holiday season is all about spending time with family and friends. It also means home-cooked meals right out of the oven like ham, turkey, stuffing, acorn squash, mashed potatoes and let's not forget delicious desserts!

All this festive activity can increase energy use. In the spirit of saving, our energy experts have compiled this list of easy tips that can help you save energy and money this holiday season.

• A 6" pot on an 8" burner wastes over 40 percent of the burner's heat. Using the right-sized pot on stove burners can save about $36 annually for an electric range.
• Use a microwave or air fryer for those small holiday cooking tasks. A microwave uses about 50 percent less energy than a conventional oven and an air fryer reduces cooking time in half and uses about 65 percent less energy than a conventional oven.
• Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) use up to 75 percent less energy than traditional bulbs and are longer lasting.
• Set your freezer temperature between 0°F to 5°F and refrigerator between 34°F to 37°F. If the temperature of your refrigerator is 10 degrees colder than necessary, it can use 25 percent more energy.
• Allow hot foods and liquids to cool before placing them in the refrigerator.
• Maximize space in your oven: for multiple dishes that can be cooked at the same temperature, be sure to use both racks in the oven and use as much space on them as you can.
• Opening the oven door to check on cooking progress wastes energy and lowers the temperature as much as 25°F.
• Only run the dishwasher on full loads. No matter how efficient your washer is, running it half full wastes twice the water
• A dripping faucet can waste gallons of water. Hot water leaking at a rate of one drip per second can waste up to 1,660 gallons of water over a year - and waste up to $35 in electricity.
• Covered pots and pans cook more efficiently and keep the kitchen cooler.
• Do you have a grill? If the weather outside isn't frightful, consider cooking your holiday meal outdoors.

Visit Save Energy to get more tips. Be sure to check out our Energy Calculators and learn about our many energy-saving programs that can help you save year-round.