by Ken San Nicolas

Guam - As island residents struggle to cut expenses this holiday season, the Guam Power Authority is coming up with ways to help its customers and their power conservation efforts. GPA introduces "Me" - their e-portal project which helps customers monitor their daily power usage.

This service is available and free to all residential users with the new smart meter. GPA spokesperson Art Perez shed some light on the product, saying, "It's a great tool to have, it's light years away from how we operated our bills last year. It's a great tool for customers to log on, register, view their usage and then better manage their energy consumption. that's a good thing for us going forward."

Signing up is simple. Just visit MyEnergyGuam.com and fill out the registration. You will need your latest billing statement however, as your current billing amount and the last 6 digits of your account number will be necessary for the registration process. Once you've registered, you can start browsing the many options that the portal has available to GPA customers.

On the dashboard tab, you will find a graph showing your overall consumption over the last 30 days, as well as a side-by-side visual comparison of your usage over the past 2 months.

Clicking on "Electronic Consumption Report" on the reports tab will give you a closer look at your power usage. From here you can change the reporting period and you can overlay a variety of variables like weather, average use, and previous month and year statistics. The detail of this information can go a long way in helping you analyze your utility usage and decide on how you can change your habits in order to save on consumption.

One of the most interesting features of the e-portal is the threshold notification system. You can set daily, weekly, and monthly thresholds and the system will notify you by email once these thresholds are met. This is an incredibly effective feature especially if you are trying to limit your KWh to a certain amount per time period.

Lastly, by clicking on the "Library" tab, users can review frequently asked questions and learn tips on how to help their conservation efforts.

Perez added that while the e-portal is available to all residential customers who opted for the smart meter, those who opted against the smart meter or who stay in condominiums with sub meter accounts will be unable to use this service.

All in all, GPA's "My Energy" portal is a brilliant tool that allows customers to take responsibility and control of their power consumption. Sign up for free today and be on your way to a lower power bill and a brighter future.