Power Smart Shop makes it easy to find efficient products
BC Hydro teams up with retailers on shopping platform for lighting, thermostats, appliances and more
It's about to get a whole lot easier to track down the most efficient home energy products out there, and to match them to BC Hydro rebates.
The Power Smart Shop is a BC Hydro pilot project that officially gets rolling October 15. It's designed to save you time, provide you with a better idea of a product's energy costs, and to take you directly to partner retailer sites to buy those products. It'll be fully up and running on October 15.
"The idea is to encourage people to make a more efficient choice when shopping, by provided clear information about energy use and costs" says BC Hydro retail program manager Margo Longland. "While this site is a first for Canada, studies on similar websites in the U.S. have shown that this information really helps people make more efficient choices."
The Power Smart Shop should be a time saver for customers. Not only does the site bring together products from different retailers in one place, it also shows energy information and costs in a clear, understandable format, along with all the other important product features that customers care about. And when there's a BC Hydro rebate available on a product, you'll see that too.
Select a product to call up details on efficiency and pricing
When you search for lighting, thermostats or appliances on the Power Smart Shop, your results are ranked with the most efficient products displaying first, complete with an efficiency rating – on a 100-point scale – to help you quickly identify the most efficient products. You can also use filters for brand or product size/type to zero in on the products you're looking for.
And once you select a product, you get detailed information about how that energy efficiency translates into savings. For example, a 100-rated Insignia clothes dryer is calculated to save you $1,301 in electricity costs over 16 years compared to a typical dryer. It also shows that the Insignia isn't a premium-priced project, ranking as two out of four – or average priced – compared to other available products.
"This site is one step on a journey of re-imagining how BC Hydro’s programs can support the needs of modern shoppers," says Longland. "We know that the majority of people today start their shopping journey online and we hope that our new Power Smart Shop will become an essential tool to help our customers make more efficient choices. And for those who still want to actually touch and experience the product in a store, the Shop is conveniently accessible on mobile devices."
Longland describes the site as a work in progress that will evolve as more product categories and retailers are added, and as research and customer feedback is completed. And while it will debut in October with purchase links to two major retailers, she expects more partners will soon come aboard.