Navigating Your Xcel Energy Portal |
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Welcome to the third installment of Sterling Ranch's crash course on energy! In this email, we'll be highlighting some information about your energy utility Xcel Energy and providing some tips on how to read and interpret information in your Xcel Energy customer portal. |
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As you likely already know, the energy utility that provides electricity and gas to Sterling Ranch is Xcel Energy. As a vertically integrated utility, Xcel Energy provides energy generation, transmission, and distribution of energy to Sterling Ranch.
Xcel Energy is striving to be one of the cleanest utilities in the US, with a net zero energy vision by 2050, including electricity, natural gas, and electric vehicles. The Colorado Clean Energy Plan will reduce carbon emissions by 85% from peak 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve carbon-free electricity by 2050.
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Partners in Energy
In addition to the work that the utility has been doing in cleaning up its own energy mix, Xcel Energy offers a program that provides communities in their Colorado, Minnesota, and Wisconsin service areas with support in creating and implementing Energy Action Plans of their own! It was through this program that Sterling Ranch's Energy Action Plan was developed, and Xcel Energy's support has been essential in helping us realize how we can reach our goals and take our community value of environmental stewardship to a new level.
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Navigating Your Customer Portal |
If you have your energy bills set to autopay, you may not be logging into your Xcel Energy web portal very often. But seeing how your energy use and bills vary month to month can be a key tool to understanding and optimizing your energy habits.
Here's a breakdown of the tabs present in your main portal page, and what you can learn from each:
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On your Home page, the first thing you'll see is the amount due for your current bill. Below that, you'll find some charts that can give you interesting insights into your energy use trends.
The first tab, Cost, shows you a comparison between the average monthly temperature and your bill amount for the current month, the previous month, and the current month this time last year. The Electric and Gas tabs show you a comparison between the average monthly temperatures and these metrics instead. Pay close attention to your yearly comparisons - since energy use varies with seasons, it can be hard to track reductions in your energy use month to month. Comparing your energy usage to your baseline from previous years is a great way to meaningfully see the impact of your energy actions. Note that if you've experienced a major change like the addition of a new person to your household or a transition an electric vehicle, this will also affect your usage trends.
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Your Billing page primarily hosts a record of your bill statements and payments. At the bottom of the page, you'll find links to the information that's typically shared on the back of your paper bill or included as inserts. Explore these links to find important Xcel Energy contact information and addresses, background on how your bill is calculated and what certain terms mean, and special messaging and education on energy topics from your utility.
For additional support on understanding your energy bill, refer to Xcel Energy's How to Read Your Bill resource.
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Review this page of your portal to manage what billing, renewable energy, and energy efficiency programs you're enrolled in, and find centralized information on any that you haven't checked out yet!
Note that on this page you can set up Autopay for your Xcel Energy bills. while setting up autopay is a great option to simplify your life, it can also get you in the habit of not logging into your Xcel Energy portal very often! Consider setting a reminder in your calendar to have a designated check in to review your energy use if you do use autopay.
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Your Usage page primarily displays a graph of different metrics for your electric and gas usage over time. Because electric cooling systems have to work harder to maintain a constant temperature in your home when outside temperatures are more extreme, you'll likely see a correlation between rising summer temperatures and rising kWh electricity use. And unless you have an electric heater in your home instead of a common gas heater, you'll likely see electricity use dip and gas use peak as temperatures decrease in the winter. For months that deviate from these trends, was your energy use higher or lower than expected, and is there a reason why?
You can also filter your report to adjust the graph to show different information related to your usage and charges. You can even view charts showing how much off-peak, mid-peak, and on-peak energy you used each month, which is helpful for understanding how well you're doing at shifting your energy loads to off-peak times. With Time of Use (TOU) rate structures coming, tracking when in the day that you're using energy will be important if you're looking to save money on energy bills by opting for the lower rates of off-peak times.
At the bottom of this page, you'll find a link to access a service called My Energy Portal. Check it out to find a dashboard where you can learn more about rewards available to you as an Xcel Energy customer, find energy-saving tips, and even create a personalized energy savings plan!
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Receive a Paper Energy Bill? |
While your online portal gives you access to much more energy information, this video from Xcel Energy provides some background on how to read and interpret your simplified paper bill.
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- Go through your Xcel Energy portal and take a look at your past and current electricity and gas use. How do you stack up to your energy efficient neighbors?
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Check out Xcel Energy's full list of residential energy savings tips and choose 3 to incorporate into your routine over the next month
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