As a lawyer in Worrcester, England, Janet S. Merrill afford to pay the electricity bill is expected to rise to 37% in November.

However, in one way or another, she was trying to save electricity at home. Instead of using the clothes dryer, exposing her to dry clothes naturally.

The old windows were replaced her last. At the same time, she also replaced all the gas boiler using old by a new value of $ 7,500.

In addition, she also adjust the heating temperature in the lower house. Only when she visited friends recently raised temperature. She said: "In my house pretty cold, so I like wearing warm sweater or jacket. I also sat in the room watching TV or on the house, by the which has a gas-powered heater. I like that save energy. "

For Merrill, she was psychologically prepared for new electricity price hike, but she worried for his clients, who have low income and few of them have relatively high age.

She said, rising electricity prices will make it difficult for tenants, because so many of them use electric heating. Many households, including households that receive subsidies from the state or federal government to pay the rent, to pay for the consumption of energy accounts separate.

"Electricity prices have been relatively high for those using electric heating equipment. And if electricity prices increase, the amount of money they have to pay even more. This makes the situation becomes worse "- Ms. Merrill said. "Many people will have to suffer in the cold because they can not afford to pay for electricity. Once there, they will have to face power outages. "

Like Ms. Merrill and many others, everyone can use a variety of ways to reduce power consumption and save costs.

Stephen S. Rolle, Director of Planning and Legal Services of Worcester, who runs the energy program of Worcester, said the program has been very successful since it was put back into operation in March.

The power-saving activities of the program participants are quite diverse, ranging from the installation project of insulating material, replacing the old boiler with a new type of higher energy efficiency and solar projects sun.

MassSave is a partnership between the utility company that provides electricity and gas to distributors or retail energy saving products, state or local. The program offers free assessment of energy, the reimbursements, loans and information related to saving energy.

According to National Grid, in partnership with companies and other energy companies across the state have made 84 thousand evaluation of the energy used in 2003 in efforts to save energy is done by homeowners last year has brought saves enough electricity to provide power for 152 thousand households and enough gas to heat nearly 15 thousand households.

Robert A. Eckel, vice president at the New England region of the services of the Westboro conservation, responsible for running a number of programs MassSave. He said there are many people interested in MassSave because it helps bring out the various options and solutions by customers who do not like the customer.

Mr. Eckel said that homeowners should best start with a free energy assessment to help them know what to do to save energy.

"It really starts with finding out if you are using the star power and then offer solutions to reduce electricity consumption," he said. "Often you can find many ways to lose an average of 20 to 30% of electricity consumption per household".

Speaking of power, we can think of many devices, such as lighting and consumer electronics devices. In Massachusetts, most households use gas or heating oil, but any heating system which is also used in certain parts of electrical energy.

According to Mr. Eckel, the innovative devices and new electrical systems have higher energy efficiency can help save more energy. He also advises consumers looking to buy energy-saving products labeled energy.

"These modern devices use a lot less energy. The new replace the old equipment will be rewarded money account in a short time, not to mention the reimbursement and other incentives "- Mr. Eckel said.