I recently stumbled across the site, Earth Aid. It is a free service that rewards you for saving energy.
Basically you sign up for an account, add the address of the home you are registering, and link your utility accounts to Earth Aid. They monitor your usage for one year and offer suggestions for reducing your energy consumption. Along with energy saving suggestions they also inform you about tax credits and rebates in your area for different energy efficient products. After a year you start earning “points” when you use less energy.
The website says they are working on rewarding people earlier than one year into the program, but so far you need to create your baseline before you are eligible for rewards. When you create your account you are given a link to some printable grocery coupons, so there is some incentive for creating an account.
The rewards were not outstanding in my opinion, but as the site grows and becomes more popular I’m sure the rewards will get better.
The only concern I have about this site, along with any site like it, is that you have to give them access to your utility information. They say they are concerned about your security and don’t share information, but I always like to thoroughly research sites that want access to my personal information.
Are you using Earth Aid? I’d love to hear your opinion of the program!
Is this a government program or does it receive government funding? I would be concerned over privacy.
It is not a government program, from what I have read.
I use Cubsaver, it’s a great site and a real eye opener. It has helped me to lower my electric and gas bill, but not drastically. Every little bit helps though!
I would be very careful about things like this. The government can get any info from anyone at any time. God only knows how they would use this info. I feel like I’m in a communist country because I have to think about such things.