Florida Families Can Help Neighbors and Celebrate an Energy-Efficient Holiday

Florida Power & Light (FPL) is combining holiday spirit with energy awareness this season through its Care To Share® initiative and interactive House of Savings experience.

Care To Share provides customers facing financial hardship with up to $750 during a 12-month period to help pay the FPL bill.  

FPL’s House of Savings challenge is designed to make learning about practical energy-saving tips interesting for all ages. The interactive experience takes customers on a virtual home tour to spot energy-saving opportunities by interacting with items like the thermostat or fridge.

As part of this online experience, Floridians can make a difference by helping neighbors in need while learning ways to save energy during the holidays.

For every House of Savings game completed by a registered player from now through Dec. 22, FPL will donate $5 to the Care To Share® financial assistance fund, up to $10,000. These funds will provide vital emergency assistance funds to Floridians who are facing crisis situations.

Pay Holiday Energy-Efficiency Forward

In addition, participants have a chance to win one of 80 Holiday Energy-Efficiency Boxes, valued at $150 each. Each box includes practical items designed to make the holidays brighter while using less energy. Winners can also nominate another registered Floridian to receive a box, spreading the holiday cheer, all season long.

Winners can choose from two themed energy-efficient prize boxes, including:

• Kitchen: Smart outlet, toaster oven and LED-lit wreath
• Outdoor: LED string lights, outdoor timer outlet, solar lawn stakes, and snowflake window clings.

Tips for a Holiday-Ready, Energy-Efficient Home

As Floridians get their homes into the holiday spirit, FPL is also offering simple energy saving tips to keep bills as low as possible this holiday season:

1. Deck the halls with LED string lights to save nearly a dollar per string of lights per month as they use 80% to 90% less energy and last 10x as long as incandescent. Consider adding solar powered lighting to your holiday décor, which uses zero energy. 
2. Plug your lights and inflatables into an outlet timer and program them to turn off automatically when you’re asleep. Running a medium-sized inflatable overnight costs an average of $4.90 extra per month, which adds up with multiple inflatables. 
3. If you opt for inflatables, consider a smart power strip to avoid phantom energy usage, which draws from decorations that appear off and can cost the average household as much as $100 per year (or $16 during the holiday season).
4. Go energy free and decorate for the holiday with ornaments, wreaths, ribbons and pathway decorations. 
5. Making holiday treats? Consider using a small appliance instead of the oven like a microwave, toaster oven or air fryer whenever possible. These use about one-third the power of an oven broiler.

For more tips, programs, resources and rebates, customers can go to FPL.com/WaystoSave, where they can access FPL’s savings tools like the Energy Manager and House of Savings.